
Book VI B 



COEffilGHT DEPOSrr. 



FATHER TABB 

His Life and Work 

The Poet-Priest of Virginia 

1845-1909 

This man's life made him worthy of a monument. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/fathertabbhislifOOtabb 




FATHER TABB 



FATHER TABB 

His Life and Work 

A Memorial By 
HIS NIECE 

JENNIE MASTERS TABB 

Introduction By 
DR. CHARLES ALPHONSO SMITH 

Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryla7id 




1921 
THE STRATFORD COMPANY, Publishers 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



Copyright 1921 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



JUN -5 1921 
g)CU6l7235 



To THE Memory of my Father 
WILLIAM BARKSDALE TABB 




The Elder Brother, under whose inspiration, 

guidance and instruction 

JOHN BANNISTER TABB 

Began his Literary Career 



Introduction 

That Father Tabb has made a permanent contri- 
bution to poetic thought hardly admits of question. 
A few months ago the Oxford University Press added 
to its well known Oxford Garland Series a volume 
called Epigrams. Onl}^ two Americans were admitted, 
Emerson and Father Tabb. More than these two 
might well, I think have been included ; but the omis- 
sion of the others may serve to remind us that just as 
American novelists have created few characters that 
may be called world citizens, so American poets have 
contributed but sparingly to the treasure-house of 
English epigram. The reason is in both cases the 
same : it is not so much a lack of leisure as inability to 
use leisure. 

Father Tabb had the leisure and the ability to use 
it constructively. He had also a concentric lyric 
genius without parallel in American literature. His 
thought does not move forward in leaps ; it turns in on 
itself and seeks truth at the centre rather than on the 
circumference. It is circular rather than linear. 
Scientists have found a new sphere of activity in the 
attempt to ''isolate the germ" of threatening diseases. 
To isolate is to conquer. Father Tabb's laboratory 
was poetical, not scientific. To it came moods and 
fancies, hints and shadows, joys and pains, hopes and 
high resolves. To get at the heart of each, to isolate 



INTRODUCTION 

the germ, was the special task and the unique privilege 
of his life. 

His work has been called that of a lapidary, but 
there is a difference. The products of the lapidary's 
skill have a certain hard finality. Their boundary and 
content are fixed and unyielding. The lapidary's 
work, like the multiplication table, means the same to 
you and to me, to this age and to coming ages. But 
Father Tabb's best quatrains are not mere quests for 
the mot juste, the one inevitable wotd or set of words. 
The boundaries that he puts about his thoughts are 
definite but elastic. His quatrains are emancipations 
rather than confinements of thought They are 
achievements not merely in condensation but in con- 
densation plus illumination. There is an aureole of 
suggestiveness about them that we do not find, for 
example, in the lines of Pope, though in the accepted 
sense Pope was the greatest master of epigram that the 
English race has produced. 

Ring one of Pope's coins on the table and compare 
its resonance with that of these lines : 

"0 little bird, I'd be 
A poet like to thee ; 
Singing my native song, 
Short to the ear, but long 
To love and memory." 

There is perfection of phrasing here but no funereal 
finality. The thought receives a certain urge and elan 

ii 



INTRODUCTION 

in the veiy moment of its embodiment. Father Tabb 'b 
appeal, therefore, evinces its distinctive excellence in 
its varying challenge to varying personalities. The 
lines called Discrepancy • — 

"One dream the bird and blossoms dreamed 
Of Love, the whole night long; 
Yet twain its revelation seemed, 
In fragrance and in song,'"' 

will appeal differently to the scientist, the sociologist, 
the litterateur, the historian ; but, however varying, 
the compression and glow of the thought are such that 
the appeal will be none the less vital, direct, and in- 
escapable. 

drowning enters Father Tabb's realm when he 
writes : 

"All the breath and the bloom of the year in 
the bag of one bee : 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in 

the heart of one gem: 
In the core of one pearl all the shade 
and the shine of the sea." 

These great lines form a sort of text to Father 
Tabb's life work. They mark out his goal. But what 
the English poet has announced as a principle the 
American poet has developed and illustrated in 
stanzas of unexampled beauty and fidelity. 

The present volume will, I am sure, add appreciably 
to the range of Father Tabb's service, for it is in a 

iii 



INTRODUCTION 

very real sense the biography of his mind. It will not 
only multiply the number of his readers but deepen 
in them the conviction that the holiness of beauty and 
the -beauty of holiness find fitting exemplars in the 
lines and in the life of the poet-priest of Virginia. 

C. ALPHONSO SMITH. 

Universit}^ of Virginia, June 2, 1916. 



IV 



"Foreword 

111 the i^laniiiiig of this volume a two-fold object 
was borne in mind — that of doing honor to one 
whom Virginia is proud to call her son, and that of 
bringing to his many friends and admirers those little 
IDcrsonal touches which will make him live again in 
their hearts. 

So many-sided was his genius — Poet, Priest, Mu- 
sician, Artist, Teacher, Friend — so filled was he with 
the spirit of mirth and with profound sympath}', with 
the joy of childhood and the sorrows of old age, that 
he ran the gamut of human emotions, and while our 
hearts are touched bj^ the deep pathos of his "songs 
from the dark" and our own eyes become dim with 
tears, those same tears ere they fall will catch a sun- 
beam from his mirth in some sparkling quatrain. 

The Sources of my information concerning Father 
Tabb have been varied : his brother-priests, his friends, 
his pupils, his relatives, his own works, all have con- 
tributed to this little volume. Of his letters I have 
published none. He was known as the ' ' poet of short 
metre" and might alSo have been called the cor- 
respondent of telegraphic brevity. He confined him- 
self largely to limericks and quatrains on post cards, 
and short squibs of notes; and disliked the thought 
that any of his personal letters should be given to the 
public. Therefore, I offer nothing from his i^eii except 



FOEEWORD 

such of his published works as will give an insight into 
what his biographer, Dr. William Hand Browne, calls 
"his sweet and delicate nature." 

It is hard to portray a character so varied, hard not 
to emphasize one trait to the neglect of another of 
equal importance, but the readers of this tribute who 
knew him will realize the complexity of the task, and 
those who did not know him are urged to find him 
in his works — to see in his writings the delicacy, 
sweetness, charm, strength and lovableness of the man. 

JENNIE MASTERS TABB. 

Farmville, Virginia, 1920. 



VI 



Acknowledgment 



I beg to make grateful acknowledgment of the 
invaluable assistance rendered me by many friends, 
chief among the number being : Mr. James M. Grainger 
of the State Normal School, Farmville; Dr. Charles 
Alphonso Smith of the Naval Academy, Annapolis, 
Md. ; Dr. J. C. Metcalf of the University of Virginia; 
Right Reverend D. J. 'Connell, Bishop of Richmond ; 
His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons ; F. Jos. Magri, D.D., 
of St. Paul's Church, Portsmouth; President M. F. 
Dinneen, D.D., of St. Charles College, Catonsville, 
Md. ; Rev. Lucien Johnston of St. Thomas Church, 
Baltimore ; Rev. Thomas A. Rankin of Charlottesville ; 
Mr. Edwin Litchfield Turnbull of Baltimore ; Rev. T. 
E. McGuigan of St. Patrick's Church, Washington; 
Dr. Thomas McCarthy of the Catholic University, 
Washington ; Mr. James M. Harvie and the late James 
C. Martin of Richmond; Miss Estelle Smithey of the 
State Normal School, Farmville; Mrs. Mary Day 
Lanier of Greenwich, Conn. ; and Sister Mary Paulina 
(M. S. Pine) of the Georgetown Visitation Convent, 
Washington. 

I also acknowledge with much gratitude the kindly 
permission granted me by Messrs. Small, Maynard and 
Company of Boston ; John Lane Company of New 
York; and Mitchell Kennerle^- of New York (Father 
Tabb's publishers) to quote from his works. 

vii 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The help received from the above uieutioned sources 
cauuot be measured : not the facts in the life of Father 
Tabb w^iieh they have giveu me, not the kindly as- 
sistance in referring me to others who could give the 
information I sought, have been the greatest help in 
the preparation of this little volume — but the genuine 
sympathy in the work, the enthusiastic interest that 
has been shown, the kind encouragement which I have 
received from all sides, have made it a pleasure indeed. 



vni 



List of Illustrations 

Frontispiece, Portrait of Father Tabb. 

John B Tabb at the age of ten. 

"The Melody from Sidney Lanier's Flue." 

His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, who, in one day, 
baptized and confirmed Father Tabb and later ad- 
mitted him to Holy Orders. '' 

St. Peter's Chnrch, Richmond, Va. 

Interior of St. Peter's Church, Richmond, Va. 

Cartoon autograph likeness of Father Tabb. 

Facsimile of autograph verse written by Father Tabb 
for the Westmoreland Club of Richmond, Va. 

The Old St. Charles College, burned in 1911. 



IX 



Contents 



CHAPTER 


. PAGE 


I 


Genealogy ...... 


1 


II 


Childhood and Early Life . 


7 


III 


The Young Soldier .... 


. 14 


IV 


Early Manhood and Conversion to 


the 




Catholic Faith . . . 


. 22 


V 


The Teacher 


. 26 


VI 


Outside the Class-room . . 


. 40 


VII 


The Musician 


. 52 


VIII 


The Writer of Child Verse 


. 58 


IX 


1 
Tabb and Lanier .... 


. 66 


X 


The Poet . . . ' . 


. 73 


XI 


The Priest 


. 123 


XII 


Twilight 


. 139 


XIII 


The End 


. 145 



XI 



CHAPTER I 
GENEALOGY 

Since the days of Adam the history of man has 
begun Avith a statement of his genealogy. In these 
modern times of advanced thought the vision of men 
and of women is forward rather than backward, the 
prime thought is for the future of the race, the de- 
scendant overshadows the ancestor, and the slogan of 
the age is Develop the Individual. In this day it 
is strange that anj^one should care for a family tree 
or a coat of arms, yet family trees are as deep-rooted 
and as wide-branched as ever and coats of arms 
adorn American walls and are pointed out with 
pride. 

In this age men make a living by hunting out an- 
cestors who have been allowed to sink into oblivion 
and whose descendants have kept alive no family 
traditions ; the only value attached to these an- 
cestors when discovered and indubitably established 
as forbears direct is that their names act as an "open 
sesame" to some coveted membership in an or- 
ganization almost as old as the country itself. 

Although the above conditions do exist in our day 
and are (justly) the target for many an arrow of 
wit and of sarcasm, there are many of the "old 

[I] 



FATHER TABB 

families" who can not only produce a grandfather 
on this side, but who have the family line unbroken 
from the parent-stock in Old England or in Bonny 
Scotland. Of such a line was the poet-priest, John 
Bannister Tabb. 



In the dawn of our Colonial life, when the early 
rays of the sun of civilization were just beginning 
to tinge the eastern shores of our Old Dominion, 
there set sail from a port of England one, Humphrey 
Tabb and his wife Joanna. Arriving in the new 
country with its virgin soil, its unbroken forests and 
trackless plains, they made their home on a tract 
of fifty acres of land on Harris Creek in Elizabeth 
City County. In 1652 Humphrey Tabb was Burgess 
of Elizabeth City County. He died about ten years 
after that date, leaving to his only child, Thomas, 
about two thousand acres of land in Elizabeth City 
and Northumberland Counties. 

Humphrey Tabb was succeeded by his son Thomas, 
and he in turn by his son John. 

The first of the name found in Amelia County is 
the great-grandson of Humphrey and Joanna Tabb, 
Colonel Thomas Tabb of "Clayhill," who was rated 
as one of the richest merchants in Virginia, An in- 
teresting item in his will, dated December 28, 1769, 
is a legacy of sixty pounds to one Nancy Booker to 
be laid out in the purchase of a negro girl, and fifteen 
pounds to buy mourning. 

[2] 



GENEALOGY 

John Tabb of Amelia, son of Colonel Thomas Tabb, 
was Burgess, member of the Committee of Safety, 
etc., and was married, February 17, 1770, to Frances 
Peyton of Gloucester County. 

A decade or so after the arrival in this country 
of Humphrey and Joanna Tabb, Major Robert- 
Peyton of Rougham, County Norfolk, England, son of 
Thomas and Elizabeth (Yelverton) Peyton (daughter 
of Sir William Yelverton of Rougham, County Nor- 
folk, and his wife, Ursula, daughter of Thomas, 
Lord Richardson) came to Virginia. He named his 
estate "Iselham" for the Peyton estate in Cam- 
bridgeshire, England. He was an attorney hy pro- 
fession but in 1680 was appointed major of the 
Gloucester County militia. 

Among the manuscripts in the College of Arms, 
London, are notes that Robert Peyton was living in 
Virginia as late as 1693 and these reports show him 
as ' ' sine posteritate ' ' — his children were born in 
Virginia and not reported in England. 

Thomas Peyton, eldest son of Sir Robert Peyton, 
born in Virginia in 1675, married in 1700, Frances 
Tabb, daughter of John Tabb, ''Church Warden of 
North River Parish." 

From the time of this first marriage of a Peyton 
and a Tabb down to the present day the families have 
so intermarried that it is almost impossible to trace 
them separately. 

Upon the death of Sir John Peyton of Iselham, 
Cambridgeshire, England, in 1721, John, the son of 

[3] 



FATHER TABB 

Thomas and Frances (Tabb) Peyton, became the 
lawful heir to the baronetcy. In the Kingston 
Parish Register his children are recorded from Eliza- 
beth, born in 1756, to Henry Yelverton, Born in 1770, 
as ''Children of Sir John and Frances Peyton." 

His claim to the title was also recognized in Vir- 
ginia. In the old Church Register it is noted that 
"Sir John Peyton and Thomas Smith, Jr., Gent., 
were appointed deputies to meet clergymen and ves- 
tries in convention to regulate all the religious con- 
cerns of the Protestant Episcopal Church — its doc- 
trines, worship, etc." Sir John Peyton was lieu- 
tenant-colonel of Gloucester County from 1775 to 
1782. 

The second daughter of Sir John Peyton was Fran- 
ces, who married John Tabb of "Clayhill" in Amelia 
County, a notice of whose death appeared as follows 
in the Richmond Enquirer of April 25, 1828 : 

"Died, at 'Clayhill,' her seat in Amelia County, 
Virginia, on the 12th of April, 1828, Mrs. Frances 
Tabb, relict of the late John Tabb, a daughter of the 
late Sir John Peyton of Iselham in the County of 
Gloucester, baronet, lineally descended from the 
Peytons of Iselham in Cambridgeshire, England. By 
the death of his son John Peyton (a younger brother 
of Mrs. Tabb) this ancient baronetcy became ex- 
tinct. As he never assumed the title after his 
father's death,' if* was claimed and held by persons 
in England not entitled to it under a false allegation 
in Debrett's 'Baronetage' that Sir John Peyton 

[4] 



GENEALOGY 

who emigrated to Virginia during the civil wars in 
England left no male heirs."* 

This notice in The Enquirer was taken from an 
obituary of Mrs. Tabb written by the celebrated 
John Randolph of Roanoke, an intimate friend of 
the family. 

John Tabb died about 1798, his personal esate 
being reckoned at £31,879, 4s SVsd. His children 

*The rest of the obituary is as follows : — 

"Beautiful in person, affable, graceful and accom- 
plished in manner, endowed with wealth unexampled 
in that quarter of the country, with a strength of 
character beyond her sex, no woman ever fulfilled the 
duties of wif«, mother, or mistress of a family with 
more fidelity and zeal than Mrs. Tabb. Her munifi- 
cence was princely, rather than that of a private per- 
son in our country. Her virtues were strictly do- 
mestic. Intent on promoting the welfare of others, 
utterly regardless of self, she was found occupied in 
•some household labor or some work of love, minis- 
tering to the sick, whether among her descendants, 
her guests, her neighbors, or her slaves. Her hospi- 
tality was boundless, her benevolence without a 
parallel. The generosity of her character has never 
been exceeded, her fortitude and presence of mind 
never surpassed. 

"This is no vulgar eulogium of a descendant of a 
legatee, it is the unbiased and unbought offering of 
one who was long honored with her friendship, to 
whom for more than forty years she was an object of 
respect approaching to reverence, who loved her liv- 
ing and laments her dead. 

"The following anecdote will serve to show that 
the writer has not been drawing on his imagination 
for these traits of character. Between midnight and 
dawn Mrs. Tabb was aroused by a tremendous noise 
in her dining room. Instead of indulging in female 
terrors, she rose from her bed, took a candle in her 
hand and proceeded along to the room from whence 
the noise came. She found the whole plastering of 
the ceiling had tumbled to the floor. She told the 
writer of these lines that she thought it was some 
thief or thieves, whose object was to break into the 
large pantry adjoining, where liquors, plate, etc.. 
were kept, and was sure, she said, that as soon as 
they saw me they would run. Yet there was nothing 
masculine in her person or manners. No fine lady 
could be more delicate than this fine woman." 

Written April, 1828, by John Randolph of Roanoke. 

[5] 



FATHER TABB 

were as follows : Martha Peyton who married, in 
1797, William B. Giles, U. S. Senator and afterwards 
Governor of Virginia ; Frances Cook Avho married 
in 1801, Dr. John R. Archer; Mary, who married 
Bathurst Randolph; Thomas and John Yelverton 
(both students at "William and Mary College) ; 
Signiora, who married Theodorick Bland Ban- 
nister; Harriet (died in infancy); Mary Ann who 
married, in 1815, William I. Barksdale of Richmond 
— their daughter Harriet married Hon. John Y. 
Mason, 

John Yelverton Tabb had only two children : Har- 
riet who married Robert C. Jones of Gloucester 
County ; and Thomas Yelverton Tabb. 

Thomas Yelverton Tabb married his first cousin, 
Marianna Bertrand Archer (daughter of Dr. John 
R. Archer) and had the following children: Harriet 
Peyton, William Barksdale, John Bannister (after- 
wards the poet-priest) and Thomas Yelverton Tabb. 



[6] 



CHAPTER II 
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 

John Bannister Tabb was born March 22, 1845, 
at "The Forest," in Amelia Comity, Virginia, about 
thirty miles from the capital city of Richmond. 
This was the home of his maternal grandfather, Dr. 
Archer. Not long after his birth his father moved to 
the adjoining plantation "Gassels" where the family 
resided until the death of Dr. Archer. They then 
returned to "The Forest." 

John Tabb's early years were passed under the 
spell of the Old Virginia regime. His life was that 
of the Southern child on the plantation : in the com- 
panionship of his sister and brothers; in the loving 
care of a father M^ho had ample time to devote to 
the development and welfare of his children; under 
the gentle influence of a mother "strong, tender, 
and beautiful in character, an honor to the sunny 
Southland which has given to our country such noble 
types of womanhood." His second volume of Lyrics 
is dedicated 

"To the Memory of My Mother 
THE COWSLIP 
It brings my mother back to me. 
Thy frail, familiar form to see, 

[7] 



FATHER TABB 

"Which was her homely joy; 
And strange that one so weak as thou 
Shouldst lift the veil that sunders now 

The mother and her boy." 

And among the influences surrounding his child- 
hood, not the least was that of a doting negro Mammy 
who instilled into her "white chillun" the song 
and story and simple faith of her race. Father Tabb 
used to tell with delight that his Mammy proudly 
exhibited him as "the ugliest baby ever born in 
Virginia." And only a few months before his death 
he refers to her in one of the pathetic little poems 
written in his blindness : . 

"MAMMY" 

"I love her countenance whereon 

Despite the longest day, 
The tenderness of visions gone 

In shadows seemed to stay. 
And now. when faithless sight is fled 

Beyond my waking gaze. 
Of darkness I am not afraid — 

It is my Mammy's face." 

At the time of her death he wrote on the fly-leaf 
of one of his own volumes : 

"To Jinny, whose faithful service to our house- 
hold ended only with her life: 

To her, Tenderness Divine, 

Be Thou, as she to me and mine!" 

[8] 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 

Reared in the atmosphere of luxury and ease of 
the Old South, with his own servants from his baby- 
hood, he came under all the gentle influences of a 
home sheltered from contact with anything but the 
grace and chivalry of the best of his race. He was 
proud of the .fact that he learned to read and write 
at his mother's knee, where he learned his prayers. 
Later, his education was in the hands of a tutor, a 
Mr. Thomas Hood, who was for years an inmate of 
tlie Tabb home where he taught the children of this 
and several other families of the neighborhood. 

An eminent writer of the day, in a biographical 
sketch of Father Tabb, says: "His boyhood, I 
think, must have been spent with nature and with 
his own thoughts — beautiful hidden dreams and 
longings which no one, perhaps not even his mother, 
suspected." How different from this picture of 
the child-dreamer is the reality ! 

Mr. James B. Harvie of Richmond, Virginia, a 
cousin, gives an interesting sketch of the home life 
and early years of the poet ; in a recent letter to the 
writer he says : 

"The first school I ever attended was "Cassels" 
(adjoining "The Forest") your dear grandfather's 
and grandmother's lovely home, rendered particu- 
larly attractive by their charming personality; we 
boys were especially attracted to them by daily kind- 

[9] 



FATHER TABB 

nesses. Your father, Colonel William B. Tabb, was 
at that time a cadet at the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute. While at that school he came home on a fur- 
lough and I remember how straight he was and what 
a graceful figure he had — we boys thought him the 
handsomest fellow we had ever seen. I never saw 
him very often after that time as he not long after- 
wards entered the army and was soon made Colonel 
of the fifty-ninth Regiment. I have heard Colonel 
Fortune Mosby, the Major of that Regiment, say 
that Colonel Tabb was a most gallant man and one 
of the best officers of his rank in our army. 

"Your uncle, 'Johnny,' as we called him, was 
one of the most joyous, rollicking, loving, and trifling 
boys I ever went to school with. I don't think he 
ever studied his lessons a minute, and consequently, 
Mr. Hood had to chastise him frequently. At that 
period every one of us hated Mr. Hood because he 
was a Yankee and talked through his nose, and we 
worried him sadly on many occasions- — but he was 
really a noble man and we all (especially Johnny) 
admired him very much when he enlisted in our 
army and died a soldier's death. 

"I have seen Mr. Hood whip your uncle Yelverton 
and he never whimpered- but when Johnny was 
whipped, Yelverton yelled louder than he did; he 
said it did not hurt him like it did to see his brother 
punished. 

"Your uncle John was by far the most popular 
boy in the school as well as in the county — always 




JOHN BANNISTER TABB AT THE AGE OF TEN 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 

making fun for the boys and g-irls and for the older 
people as well. He was especially gifted as a car- 
toonist, and i]i a minute eouhl draw a ludicrous 
likeness of any one, especially of my dear father. 
Dr. Harvie, Miio Avas one of his special cronies. I 
have heard Father threaten to box his ears for his 
impudence — he would get mad as a hornet, and the 
next minute be convulsed when Johnny would show 
him a caricature of some other valued friend. ' ' 

John Tabb was a punster from his cradle : when 
he and his brother Yelverton were about twelve and 
ten years old, Yelverton wrote a love letter to one 
of his little schoolmates and (for safe keeping until 
it could be delivered) hid it in Johnny's book of 
piano exercises. Of course Johnny found it, read it, 
and being an inveterate tease, told of it in Yelver- 
ton 's presence. When the latter angrily denounced 
him for reading a note not intended for him, Johnny 
smilingly- replied : "I have a right to read any 'note ' 
found in my exercise book!" 

The accompanying likeness of John Tabb in his 
tenth year was the work of a traveling artist who 
stopped at ' ' The Forest ; ' ' the old daonierreot3^pe was 
taken, not with any idea of preserving the childish 
features of the future poet-priest, but to get a pic- 
ture of old Carlo, William Tabb 's favorite hunting 
dog. 

When the photograph was to be taken little 
Johnny requested that he be allowed to hold Carlo. 
He was particularly devoted to his brother William 



FATHER TABB 

and felt all a small boy's pride and interest in any- 
thing that concerned him, and so intent was he on 
getting a good picture of the dog that an excellent 
likeness of both dog and boy was obtained. 

Very early in his boyhood John Tabb showed great 
musical and artistic talent and it is strange to note 
that his genius as a writer was much later in its de- 
velopment ; not until after he had passed his twenty- 
fifth year did he begin to give any indication of the 
marvelous powers he possessed. His vivid imagina- 
tion, his passionate love of the beautiful in nature, 
in art and in music, his keen wit and sparkling 
humor were universally acknowledged by his friends 
and associates, but his desire to. give the public the 
benefit of his visions and his unique interpretations, 
lay dormant through his youthful years. In the 
early days of his literary career his brother William 
was his editor as well as his inspiration and his 
guide; this brother was noted for the beauty and 
purity of his English — it was said that he was the 
only member of the Charleston, West Virginia, bar 
whose extempore speeches could be printed verbatim. 

When John Tabb was but a little child, so great 
was his love for music and so imusual his talent in 
this direction that it was expected he would make 
it his life-work. A great deal of his early instruction 
he received from Mrs. Judith Blair of Lexington, 
Virginia, who (although not a relative) was af- 
fectionately known as ''Aunt Judith." When only 
a boy he spent from six to eight hours daily in 

[12] 



CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 

piano practice and even in the evening of life, 
when his light was turned to darkness, this gift re- 
mained with him. At the time of his death, in his 
sixty-fifth year, a friend spoke of him as follows : 
"A brilliant performer on the piano, his taste in- 
clined much to minor chords and musical revery 
that caused the listening students to first pay 
breathless attention and then to steal noiselessly 
away, leaving the old musician alone with his melody 
and his memories." 



[13] 



CHAPTER III 
THE YOUNG SOLDIER 

Young Tabb was only sixteen years old at the be- 
ginning of the War between the States- — the three 
brothers responded to their country's call: the eldest, 
William, was, at the age of tAventy-two, Colonel 
of the Fifty-ninth Virginia Infantry with young Yel- 
verton, only fourteen years old, a private in his 
Regiment ; and it may be noted here that the boy 
served for the four long years of the struggle with- 
out a furlough. 

From childhood John Tabb was troubled with 
weak eyes ; in his twelfth year an oculist examined 
them and found a defect which science could not 
remedy, and for several years his tutor did most of his 
reading for him. On account of defective sight he was 
debarred from military service, so he entered the nav;\' 
as Captain's Clerk on the Confederate States Steamer, 
"Robert E. Lee" which, under the command of his 
cousin, the gallant Captain John Wilkinson, ran the 
blockade at Wilmington, North Carolina, twenty-one 
vimes. 

On the lirst voyage a Major Price died of yellow 
fever and his body lay on deck as the "Robert E. 

[14] 



THE YOUNG SOLDIER 

Lee" drew near San Salvador. Years later Father 
Tab!) referred to the ineident in the poem 

''OFF SAN SALVADOR" 

"It lay to westward — as of old 
An emerald bar across the gold 
Of sunset, where a vision grand 
First beckoned to the stranger's land. 
And on our deck, uncoi^ned, lay 
A child, whose spirit far away 
The waftnre of an angel hand 
Late welcomed to a stranger land." 

In speaking of this incident to a friend, Reverend 
Joseph A. Perrig, Father Tabb explained that the 
"imcotBned child" referred to was the late Major 
Price and that as he saw the beautiful sunset off 
San Salvador, he could not help imagining the dead 
■man as seeing the light of Our Saviour. Father 
Perrig said: "When he .read his poem to me I 
asked 'Were you a poet then?' i.e., did you write 
poetry?' 'No,' he said, 'the poetry I felt indeed, 
but could not give expression to it ! " 

Another incident in his life as blockade runner on 
the "Robert E. Lee" is commemorated in the poem: 

"THE LOST ANCHOR" 

"Ah, sweet it was to feel the strain, 
What time, unseen, the ship above 

[15] 



FATHER TABB ' . 

Stood steadfast to the storm that strove 
To rend our kindred cords atwain! 

To feel, as feel the roots that grow 
In darkness, when the stately tree 
Resists the tempest, that in me 
High Hope was planted far below! 

But now, as when a mother's breast 
Misses the babe, my prisoned power 
Deep-yearning, heart-like, hour by hour, 
Unquiet aches in cankering rest." 

To use Father Tabb 's words : ' ' That anchor liked 
to break my heart." The ship was caught in a heavy 
storm off Cape Fear River in North Carolina. The 
night was very dark, lowering clouds covered the 
skies and no ray from the hidden moon pierced the 
blackness that surrounded them. They were obliged, 
to drop anchor, but did not know what their posi- 
tion was. "When dawn broke they were shocked to 
find that they were within the blockading line, and 
that seventeen TInion ships were in sight. Not hav- 
ing time to draw up the anchor, they cut the cable 
and made their escape mid a storm of shot and shell. 

While in the service John Tabb also visited Ha- 
vana, St. Thomas Island, London, Dover, Calais, Paris, 
Bologne, and Glasgow. Twenty engravers who 
were to make the Confederate money, and two young 
professors (Mr. Blair and Mr. Thomas Price) were 

[i6] 



THE YOUNG SOLDIER 

passengers on the return voyage. In after years 
Dr. Price succeeded Dr. Gildersleeve in the Faculty 
of the Universit}^ of Virginia and published the first 
essay on Father Tabb's poems. 

The "Robert E. Lee" was captured in 1864 by 
the United States steamer "Keystone" and young 
Tabb, with other prisoners, Avas sent to Point Look- 
out, Maryland, where they were confined for eight 
months. Although these months of imprisonment 
with their suffering and inactivity were a sore trial 
to the young heart, they were the source of one of 
the deepest and tenderest friendships of his life, for 
among" his fellow prisoners was his brotlier-poet, Sid- 
ney Lanier, who shared with him the gift of music 
as well as of verse. 

Never robust, John Tabb's health was much im- 
paired hy the confinement and hardships of prison 
life — the memories of which were deeply burned 
into his heart. One day, while lying ill Avith fever, 
there were borne to him the silvery tones of a dis- 
tant flute — so faint, so delicate as to be scarcely 
distinguishable; at first he thought it but a figment 
of his fevered brain but upon inquiry he found that 
the music was a reality and the player Lanier, whom 
he met a few days later. Many were the heavy hours 
of prison life that were lightened by the music of 
this flute, which Father Tabb says was his greatest 
consolation at that time, and which remained with 
him always, among so many painful recollections, 
"a thing of beauty — a joy forever." 

[17] , 



• FATHER TABB 

There was one melody, an improvisation, that 
Lanier played over and over. It vi^as so beautiful 
and had such a haunting note of sadness that few 
of his fellow prisoners could hear it without tears. 
Mr. Edwin Litchfield Turnbull of Baltimore has 
harmonized and published this melody. In writing 
of it Mr. Turnbull says : 

''This quaint bit of music was breathed from the 
silvery-toned flute of that master of song and music, 
Sidney Lanier, whose memory is' especially dear to 
the citizens of Baltimore among whom the Southern 
poet resided many years and where, in a quiet grave 
in Greenmont, he sleeps. A gallant Confederate 
soldier in the Civil War, he was captured and con- 
fined in Point Lookout Prison; but he managed to 
slip by the guard with his beloved flute — the com- 
panion of many a weary march — smuggled up his 
sleeve. Thereafter he cheered his fellow-prisoners 
with soulful music. The fragment of melody which 
I have here presented was given me by Lanier's 
comrade in prison, the Baltimore Poet-Priest, Father 
Tabb, who many years after yet vividly recalled the 
haunting melody from the poet's flute. He sang it 
to me one day and I have tried to give it an appro- 
priate setting." 

Father Tabb refers to Lanier 's music as follows : 
"LANIER'S FLUTE" 
"When palsied at the pool of thought 
The poet's words were found. 
Thy voiee the healing angel brought 
To touch them into sound." 
[i8] 



A Melody from Lanier's Flute. 



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Copyright by Brcitkopf & Hartel. New York and Leipzig 

The "Melody from Lanier's Flute," as arranged by Mr. Turnbull, has 
charmed many audiences. Under the direction of Mr. Turnbull it has beei' 
played many times by the United States Marine Band at the Capitol, at thi 
White House, at the Marine Barracks, and on their annual concert tours; it has 
also been rendered by an orchestra of twenty-one Boston Symphony musicians at 
Bar Harbor, Maine, and by a sextette of Peabody musicians at the Johns Hop 
kins exercises; when the Sidney Lanier Memorial Exercises were held March 1 
1914, at the First Unitarian Church, Baltimore, Mr. Frederick G. Gottlieb who 
was a friend of Lanier and sat next him in the old Peabody Orchestra, played 
"The Melody" as a flute solo. Mr. Gottlieb was the soloist at the Johns Hop- 
kins exercises also. "The Melody" was played at the North Congregational 
Church at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December, 1914, with Arthur Brooke, 
second flute of the Boston Symphony, as soloist, and during the same year Mr. 
J. Fred WoUe. director of the Bach Festival at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, played 
"The Melody" at several of his organ recitals, giving also the history of the 
composition. 



[19] 



FATHER TABB 

The -intimacy between the two young men grew 
and ripened and lasted until the death of Lanier. 
And even in death the bond was unbroken : Lanier 
is often mentioned in Father Tabb's poems, and 
always with a yearning tenderness which bespeaks 
the depth of the feeling between them. 

When the young soldiers were released in Feb- 
ruary 1865 and stepped once more into God's free 
air and sunshine, young Tabb (not quite twenty 
years old) said: "I felt that I was in the Kingdom 
of Heaven!" But in reality he was facing a ruined 
and desolate country. Where once the broad acres 
of his father's plantation smiled with plenty and 
where rang the happy melody of the old plantation 
melodies, sung by the incomparable voices of the 
negroes, all was waste; a little later in the spring 
these fields, once showing the emerald of the tender 
blade of grass or grain, would blossom with the 
four-years growth of poverty — sassafras and the 
trailing vine of the dewberry. 

Young Tabb 's county of Amelia had given her all 
to her beloved South : her sons, her stores, her treas- 
ured family silver. The brass andirons and fenders 
(the pride of many a "Mammy" who kept them like 
burnished gold) went for the manufacture of cannon, 
and the linen from many a family chest found its 
way to the hospitals in neat rolls of bandage and 
packages of lint scraped by the loving hands of the 
women at home. 

The desolation around him, however, did not 

' [20] 



THE YOUNG SOLDIER 

dampen the ardour of the young patriot's spirit nor 
lessen the buoyancy of his outlook upon life. 

To the last day of his life he was as devoted a 
Confederate as Father Ryan; and never could be in- 
duced to go north of Mason and Dixon's line. One 
of his students at St. Charles College, Mr. Barrett, 
lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was exceedingly 
anxious for Father Tabb to visit him in his home. 
But the invitation was declined with the following 
lines : 

'*Who would think on 
A Rebel with Lincoln? 
Or venture to ask a 
Friend to Nebraska! 
Another might dare it, 
But I cannot, Barrett, 
Though truly to thee 
A friend. J. B. T." 

As ardent a Virginian as he was a Confederate, he 
cultivated the friendship of many Virginians who 
lived in the vicinity of the College. Upon one oc- 
casion, when asked if he had called upon some 
family in the neighborhood, he laughingly replied: 
"0 no! I only go to see Virginians!" 



[21] 



CHAPTER IV 

» 

EARLY MANHOOD AND CONVERSION TO THE 
CATHOLIC FAITH 

While serving on the "Robert E. Lee," John Tabb 
had won the friendship and affection of Major Picklin 
who, recognizing his remarkable musical talent, 
and realizing that the boy was now thrown on his 
own resources, induced him to come to Baltimore 
under his patronage to resume the study of music. 
For a year he devoted his entire time to this work 
under Professor Roemer, but at the end of the year 
the Ficklin fortune collapsed and he was forced to 
give up his course. 

Thus, at the age of twentj-one we find him a 
teacher in St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal School in 
Baltimore. 

John Tabb was baptized in infancy and confirmed 
in his boyhood in the Episcopal faith — the faith of 
his forbeiars for many generations back. The old 
Colonial Church, known as the "Grub Hill Church," 
still stands in Amelia County, the guardian of the 
Tabbs from the time of their first settlement in the 
County. Here their children were christened, con- 
firmed and married and around its sacred walls 
many members of the famil}'' now sleep, among them 

[22] 



EARLY MANHOOD AND CONVERSION 

the brother of Father Tabb. In his young manhood 
he, liimself, was a Lay-Reader in the old Church 
under the Reverend Parke Parley Berkeley who was 
for fifty-two years the spiritual father of that con- 
gregation. 

St. Paul's School in Baltimore Avas attached to Mt. 
Calvary Church, under the pastorate of Rev. Alfred 
Curtis "whose face was already turned towards 
Rome." Mt. Calvary was "High Church" to the 
extent that its Rector "said Mass," preached de- 
votion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and called himself 
a priest, wearing cassock and biretta. A strong- 
friendship grew up between him and the young 
teacher who soon fell under his spiritual influence 
and accepted him as his guide. And this influence 
was in no way diminished when John Tabb left St. 
Paul's in 1870 to accept a better position in another 
Episcopal institution, Racine College, Michigan. 

After a year of service at Racine he resigned the 
chair he held, to follow the bidding of a voice within 
Avhieli- led him to a higher service, and entered the 
Episcopal Theological 'Seminary at Alexandria, Vir- 
ginia. 

Just about the time the young teacher began his 
course at Alexandria, the Rev. Mr. Curtis reached 
his decision in a matter which he had for a long time 
had under consideration ; he resigned his pastorate 
and very soon left the Anglican Communion, pre- 
paratory to going into that of the Roman Catholic 
faith. He Avent to Oxford to consult Dr. NcAvman 

[23] 



FATHER TABB 

and made liis final decision in May 1S72, when he was 
baptized into the ehnreh of his adoption. 

This radical change on the part of Mr. Cnrtis had 
a strong intlnence on the mind and heart of his vomig 
disciple who followed his course with the most in- 
tense interest, and when Mr. Cnrtis. soon after his 
return from Europe, entered St. Mary's Seminary 
to prepare for the priesthood, John Tabb (who had 
also been prayerfully studying and considering the 
same step^ soon followed his example and in less 
than a year identified himself with the Catholic 
Church. 

On the day of Father Curtis' ordination (December 
19, 1S74) he heard his first confession, and the 
penitent was his old friend and disciple, John Tabb. 

The biographer of Bishop Curtis speaks thus of 
their relations: "They had been the closest of 
friends ; and years after, Avhen Father Curtis became 
Bishop of Wilmington, he regularly visited his 
friend, often walking the five miles from the rail- 
road station to St. Charles College. Bishop Curtis 
was his consoling angel in the hour of his greatest 
trial and darkness, when threatened with the loss 
of sight. Together they took* long walks through 
the country, recreating each other and exchanging 
remiuiscenses, one submitting to the criticism of his 
friend his latest verses, while the other cheered him 
by his encouragement. He sent the poet kind and 
loving messages from his deathbed and bequeathed 




HIS EMINENCE, CARDINAL GIBBONS 



EARLY MANHOOD AND CONVERSION 

to him his chalice. Bishop Curtis died Jul}" 11, 1908, 
only sixteen months before his friend." 

In 1874 John Tabb entered St. Charles College to 
take up his preparation for the priesthood. Upon 
the completion of his classical course he was given 
the chair of English in that institution and remained 
there until his death in 1909. 

He took his theological course while a member 
of the Faculty and was not ordained to the priest- 
hood until 1884. His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, 
was a close friend of the young teacher and had 
the rather unique privilege of administering to him in 
one day, at old St. Peter's Cathedral in Richmond, 
Virginia, the four sacraments : Baptism, Confession, 
Confirmation and the Holy Communion. Later his 
Eminence also gave him Holy Orders. 

Many years after, in playful mood, he asked the 
Cardinal for further spiritual honors — his sight was 
almost gone at the time and his old friend Bishop 
Curtis in taking leave of him asked if he could take 
an}" message to Cardinal Gibbons. Father Tabb 
promptly replied: ''Yes, ask him to give me a new 
'See'". 

The above incident was related to the writer by 
His Eminence himself. 



[25] 



CHAPTER Y 
THE TEACHEE 

John Bannister Tabb was a born teacher and con- 
sequently rejoiced in his work which was truly "a 
labor of love." He was an unusually fine Greek 
scholar and delighted in teaching special classes in 
this language; he had a wonderful memory and often 
recited for his pupils long passages from the Greek 
poets. His preference, however, was for English 
and his class hour was eagerly awaited by his students. 
One of these. Rev. F. Jos. Magri, M.A., D.D., formerly 
of Richmond, Virginia, now pastor of St. Paul's 
Church, Portsmouth, Virginia, gives the following 
interesting sketch of him at St. Charles College : 

"The reminiscences which follow are intended to 
picture Father Tabb as he appeared to the writer 
during a close friendship of twenty-one years, con- 
tinuing to the time of the poet-priest's death. An 
effort will be made to portray characteristic incidents 
in his life both within the college walls, where he spent 
a great portion of his days, as well as in the outside 
world during his vacations, passed principally under 
the bright skies of his dear Old Virginia. 

"In order completely to depict Father Tabb in his 
wellrounded life at St. Charles College let us view him 

[26] 



THE TEACHER 

(1) in the classroom and study hall, (2) at his recre- 
ation and (3) in his priestly devotions." 

These different phases of his life we will follow — 
quoting Dr. Mag-ri as each is touched upon. 

"Tliat Father Tabb was a born teacher, gifted with 
the essential trait of being able to impart easily his 
knowledge to others, is vouched for by all who had 
the good fortune to come under his kindly tutelage. 
His "Bone Rules of English Grammar" are, to say 
the least, unique, and form a solid groundwork on 
which to firmly rear the superstructure of the 
English language. His method of arousing the atten- 
tion of his students was striking; in order to impart 
with effect some important truth, he would often pre- 
face his teaching hy the narration of some comic story 
or witty saying. A roar of laughter emanating from 
Father Tabb's classroom would indicate to the stu- 
dents of other classes that he had just effectively nar- 
rated some amusing experience or illustration ; his 
peculiar gestures and grimaces, while giving vent to 
his Avitty sayings, would often provoke as much 
laughter as the sayings themselves. Often his jokes 
were so deep that the students did not immediately 
see the point aimed at, yet a spontaneous burst of mer- 
riment would greet the narration, followed by a second 
peal when the telling point would be discovered. As a 
sample of his wit, the following is given as heard from 
Father Tabb's lips on the day of the writer's arrival 
at college : "In a certain family wherein was an old 
negro Mammy, were little twin girls so much alike that 

[27] 



FATHER TABB 

it was difficult to distin^ish them apart. The 
Mammy, however, was very partial to one of them 
and, when visitors would remark that the little girls 
were exactly alike, Mammy, placing hfer hand on the 
head of her favorite, would add: "An' especially 
dis one." 

"Whilst Father Tabb would enlighten and enter- 
tain his pupils by frequent readings from the poets, 
and occasional selections from prose, he would never 
consent to teach poetry as such. One day when asked 
why he refused to teach the class in poetry, he replied : 
"Did I teach poetry I would feel like a surgeon who 
might try to dissect himself." 

This refusal, however, did not apply to his giving 
his pupils for study and analysis specimens from the 
poets of his choice, the principal being Shakespeare, 
Poe, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Tennyson. He 
would each year recite to his class from memory, Poe 's 
"Eaven" from beginning to end. His love for the 
weird and strange is shown by his frequent references 
to Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." His 
favorite prose author was Cardinal Newman. Poe, he 
regarded as the originator and greatest master of the 
short story. " 

But the work of his class was not all so enter- 
taining — half of each recitation period was given 
up to drill, land his wonderful gift for illustration was 
often brought into play in his blackboard work. 

He was a strong disciplinarian and brooked no show 
[28] 



THE TEACHER 

of inattention or lack of interest in the work in hand. 
Sometimes, too, he gave way to a just indignation at 
such an attitude in a pupil. A prominent priest of 
Virginia states that on one occasion he had painful 
proof of the fact that Father Tabb demanded the full 
attention of the boys in his classes. He says: "The 
fact that I was a Virginian gave the priest a special 
interest in my welfare but on one occasion this inter- 
est was manifested in a way that left an indelible 
impression on my mind and almost as strong an im- 
pression on my cranium. It happened that I became 
absorbed in "David Copperfield" and took it to 
Father Tabb's class in order to read a few pages. It 
was not long before I was discovered, the book 
snatched from my* hand and brought down on my head 
in no gentle fashion — and the lecture then and there, 
supplemented by a heart to heart talk after class, 
entirely cured me of any inclination to distractions in 
class. ' ' 

Father Tabb's "Bone Rules, or the Skeleton of 
English Grammar" was first published in 1897 and 
clearly demonstrates his method of teaching. The 
dedication of the volume is as follows : 

"Inscribed to my Pupils, Active and Passive, Per- 
fect and Imperfect, Past, Present and Future, by their 
loving Father Tabb." 

In a presentation copy he added to the above: "In 
M^hatever Mood they may be," and wrote beneath 
the dedication : 

[29] 



FATHER TABB 

"EPITAPH SUGGESTED BY THE AUTHOR 

Here lies the old fool 
Who erstwhile taught school 
And wrote the Bone Rule : 
God, keep him cool ! ' ' 

A critic says of tliis volume: "The brevity and 
clearness which mark every page, the pithy explana- 
tory notes, the copious quotations from the masters of 
English literature, and even the comic procession of 
'Sentences to be Corrected,' many of them Father 
Tabb's own creation, render 'Bone Rules' an easy 
and helpful manner of studying grammar." 

Some of the parenthetical remarks in this volume 
are most amusing; for instance, after his treatment 
of ' ' Verbs ' ' he adds as a footnote : ' ' Remark : A^iy 
word may be used as a verb ; as, ' it out-herods 
Herod. 



J ? J 



You head the list ; 
I hand the quill ; 
And toe the mark. 
And foot the bill." 

He had a unique way of impressing facts .by means 
of rhymes : at the end of the chapters on Adjectives 
and Adverbs he gives the following : 

"To bodies, color, shape and size 
And weight the adjective supplies; 

[30] 



THE TEACHER 

And gives to things' we cannot see 
Their rank, and worth, and quaUiij." 

and again 

"The time, the place, or tvhither, whence; 
The manner how, the reason why: 
The purpose, cause, and consequence 
Tlie adverb can alone supply." 

Reference has been made to Father Tabb's "comic 
procession of sentences to be corrected." Among the 
best of the original ones are: 

"Them that was foremost in making the fuss 
Is as old, and a hundred times meaner than us. 

He said if I seen j'ou before it was took, 

To tell }-ou the physic had ought to be shook. 

My friend is as old and more abler than me, 
And if he lives longer, a bishop he '11 be. 

The child had laid so long in bed. 

Expecting to get stronger, 
That ere I seen him he had grew 

Most fifteen inches longer. 

Him and me being about the same height. 

Is often mistook for each other at night, 

But the sun having rose, on our features to shine, 

You can see that his eyes is some littler than mine. 

[31] 



FATHER TABB 

"Lay still," his mother often said 
When "Washington had went to bed. 
But little Georgie would reply: 
"I set up, but I cannot lie ! " 

The drill work, the technical part of the lesson, 
having been disposed of, Father Tabb, much to the 
delight of his classes, turned to the poets, and many 
charming hours were spent with Shakespeare, Shelley, 
Keats and Poe — the latter being, perhaps, the 
favorite. 

Mr. S. T. Duggan, a gifted student of the poet, 
writes : ' ' We ran with him through the gamut of ' ' The 
Bells, ' ' from the riotous roar to the softest tintinabula- 
tions. And even the most apathetic was forced to 
wipe away a tear at realizing the full sadness of the 
untimely taking off of ' ' that rare and radiant maiden 
whom the angels name Lenore." Toward the end of 
one session the teacher went to one corner of the class- 
room, crouched, and began to recite "The Skylark." 
The students were transfixed. When he had finished, 
he was on tiptoe at the opposite comer of the room, 
breathless, as if eager to follow the bird in its flight. 
Instinctively the class broke into tumultuous applause. 
He modestly repressed our enthusiasm with the re- 
mark : ' ' Gentlemen, did you see that skylark soar ? did 
you hear him sing? If there is a single boy in this 
class who did not see that bird and hear him, I forbid 
him ever again to open a book of poetry, for it would 
be sheer waste of time." 

[32] 



THE TEACHER 

Need it be said that most of those present saw 
the bird and heard him sing?" 

Father Tabb's love for Poe, Keats and Shelley is 
best exemplified, I think, by the following beautiful 
tributes from his pen : 

POE 

Sad spirit, swathed in brief mortality, 

Of Fate and fervid fantasies the prey. 

Till the remorseless demon of dismay 

'erwhelmed thee — lo ! thy doleful destiny 

Is chanted in the requiem of the sea 

And shadowed in the crumbling ruins grey 

That beetle o'er the tarn. Here all the day 

The Raven broods on solitude and thee ; 

Here gloats the moon at midnight, while The Bells 

Tremble, but speak not, lest thy Ulalume 

Should startle from her slumbers, or Lenore 

Harken the love-forbidden tone that tells 

The shrouded legend of thy early doom 

And blast the bliss of heaven for evermore. 

AT KEATS' GRAVE • 

' ' I feel the flowers growing over me. ' ' 
Prophetic thought ! Behold, no cypress gloom 
Portrays in dim memorial the doom 
That quenched the ray of starlike destiny ! 
E'en Death itself deals tenderly with thee: 
For here, the livelong year, the violets bloom 

[33] 



FATHER TABB 

And swing their fragrant censers fill tlie tomb 

Forgets the legend of mortality. 

Nay : when the pilgrim periods of time 

Alternate song and holy requiem sing, 

As through the circling centuries sublime 

They scatter frost, or genial sunshine bring. 

With gathered sweets of every varjang clime, 

They M^eave around thee one perpetual Spring ! 

SHELLEY 

Shelley, the ceaseless music of thy soul 
Breathes in the Cloud and in the Skylark's song. 

That tloat as an embodied dream along 
The dewy lids of morning. In the dole 

That haunts the West Wind, in the joyous roll 
Of Arethusan fountains, or among 

The wastes where Ozymandias the strong 
Lies in colossal ruin, thy control 

Speaks in the Avedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave 
A fragrance to all nature, and a tone 

To inexpressive silence. Each apart — 
Earth, Air and Ocean — claims thee as its own ; 

The twain that bred thee and the panting wave 
That clasped thee, like an overflowing heart. 

TO SHELLEY 

At Shelley's birth. 
The Lark, dawn-spirit, with an anthem loud. 
Rose from the dusky earth 

[34] 



THE TEACHER 

To tell it to the Cloud, 
That, like a flower night-folded in the gloom 
Burst into morning bloom. 

At Shelley's death 
The Sea, that deemed him an immortal, saw 

A god's extinguished breath, 

And landward, as in awe. 
Upbore him to th^ altar 'Wihenee he came, 

And the rekindling flame. 

KEATS 

Upon thy tomb 'tis graven, "Here lies one 
Whose name is writ in water." Could there be 

A flight of fancy fitlier framed for thee, 
A fairer motto for her favorite son? 

For, as the waves, thy varying numbers run — 
Now crested proud in tidal majesty, 

Now tranquil as the twilight revery 
Of some dim lake the white moon looks upon 

While teems the world with silence. Even there 
In each Protean rainbow tint that stains 

The breathing canvas of the atmosphere, 
We read an exhalation of thy strains. 

Thus, on the scroll of Nature, everywhere, 
Thy name, a deathless syllable, remains. 

POE-CHOPIN 

O'er each the soul of Beauty flung 
A shadow, mingled with the breath 

Of music that the Sirens sung, 
Whose utterance is death. 

[35] 



FATHER TABB 
KEATS-SAPPHO 

Methinks when first the nightingale 
Was mated to thy deathless song, 

That Sappho, with emotion pale, 
Amid the Olympian throng. 

Stood listening with "lips apart. 
To hear in thy melodious love 
The pantings of her heart. 

POE'S CRITICS 

A certain tyrant, to disgrace 
The more a rebel 's resting place, 
Compelled the people, every one, 
* To hurl, in passing there, a stone; 
Which done, the rugged pile became 
A sepulchre, to keep the name. 
And thus it is with Edgar Poe : 
Each passing critic has his throw, 
Nor sees, defeating his intent. 
How lofty grows the monument ! 

Father Tabb's own critics were sometimes fa- 
vored (?) with the same kind of attention and so 
clever were some of these hits that when ' ' Quips and 
Quiddits" appeared in 1907, the publishers, Small, 
Maynard & Company, of Boston, collected a number 

[36] 



The teacher 

of them and inserted them with the following note as 
preface : 

' ' A few verses by way of introduction, in which the 
author gets even with his critics, his publishers, and 
those who trifle with his name — from which latter 
failing he himself does not seem exempt. ' ' 

Among the best of these verses are the following : 

''ON THE COVER OF JOHN B. TABB'S LATE 
LONDON VOLUME 

His eyes are dim; 

And so for him, 
They thought in London 'twas enough 
To bind his book in blind-man's buff!" 

''TO MR. ANDREW LANG, WHO SPELLED MY 
NAME 'TAB' 

why should Old Lang Sign 
A compliment to me, 
(If it indeed be mine) 
And filch my final b? 

To him as to the Dane 

In his soliloquy. 

This question comes again, — 

'2b or not 2b?' " 

Father Tabb alwaj^s impressed strongly upon his 
students a love for the doctrines and discipline of the 

[37] 



FATHER TABB 

Church, but once he remarked in class that if he 
should die before his ordination he would like his 
epitaph to read : ' ' Sacred to the memory of John B. 
Tabb, D. D." When reminded by a member of the 
class that he was not yet a Doctor of Divinity, he 
replied: "D. D. will not mean Doctor of Divinity on 
my tombstone, it will mean Died of Dogma." 

He had a great distaste for mathematics and would 
never admit that he could even add. The following 
he says, is ''the only geometrical thought I ever had 
and it shows all I know of the science of angles : 

Suspended o'er Geometry 
I am a fisher-woman, dangling — 
A creature too obtuse to know 
• What is acute in angling." 

One of his critics says: "He had the faculty oi 
genius in calling out latent talent in his students, 
which he fostered with generous and unremitting care. 
Indeed, he was ever at their service, in class or out of 
class." 

Another says: "He possessed rare ability, both to 
fix the attention of his students and to rivet in in- 
dividual minds the facts he wished to impress. His 
methods of teaching were original and the means used 
were indifferent to him if in the end the fact was 
indelibly impressed upon the student's memory; a 
comic story, a limerick, a pun, a humorous illustration 
on the blackboard — for the priest was gifted with 

[38] 



THE TEACHER 

pencil as with pen — all were quickly utilized as a 
means to a desired end. No lesson was ever presented 
twice in the same way, and there was nothing in 
which he delighted more than in grounding the young 
student in the elements, or as he termed them the 
''bones" of English grammar. It would be difficult 
to find an instructor better fitted for the task, and it 
was a dull student indeed who did not make rapid pro- 
gress under his inspiring instruction. ' ' Boys, ' ' he once 
remarked in the classroom, "I don't care how ridicu- 
lous a thing is if by it I can teach you something you 
ought to know. ' ' 

"Thoroughly familiar with the classics, scarcely a 
day passed that the instructor did not devote some 
portion of it to Greek and Latin authors — especially 
the poets. Often he read one of these ancient master- 
pieces to his class, and new significance and beauty 
were evoked by the strenei:h and intelligence of his 
interpretation. After Shakespeare, his favorite 
English authors were Tennyson, Keats and Shelley. 
He had a fondness also for Coleridge, whose "Rime 
of the Ancient Mariner" he frequently read to his 
students with a dramatic effect difficult to surpass. 
His appreciation of Poe was deep and sincere, and the 
words of the poets he loved were close to him as his 
own thoughts. Often he quoted from the English 
poets at great lengtH without any reference to the 
text." 



[39] 



CHAPTER VI 
OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

Returning to Father Magri's sketch we shall next 
see Father Tabb pictured in the study hall and at his 
recreation. 

"During certain hours he presided in place of the 
prefect of discipline. It was his invariable custom 
while ' ' keeping study ' ' to walk up and down the 
centre aisle with a small book in his hand, on which 
rested a sheet of paper whereon he would from time to 
time jot down some poetic thought, or draw a cartoon 
of some well known individual, which latter he would 
show to different students as he passed along beside 
their desks. Sometimes the drawing would be of so 
comical a nature that the student, on beholding ir, 
would disturb the whole study hall by his irrepressible 
laughter ; after which Father Tabb would,' with mock 
solemnity, place a finger on his lips in token of silence 
and, in affected majesty, continue his walk up and 
down the room. This assumed manner, so unnatural 
to him, would often provoke more laughter, until he' 
signalled with his hand that hd^ wished the spirit of 
mirth to end." 

Rev. T. A. Rankin of Charlottesville, Virginia, 
relates that: "Father Tabb was habitually making 

[40] 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

puns, some rather far-fetched, on every conceivable 
subject. Nearly every thing he said evoked a smile. 
A classmate of mine, I remember, always greeted these 
witticisms with a hearty laugh — whether he under- 
stood the point or not. One evening while Father 
Tabb was in charge of the stud}^ hall and was going 
along the aisles, stopping occasionally to speak a word 
of encouragement or to spring a pun that had just 
occurred to his fertile mind, he stopped at the afore- 
said student's desk and asked him a serious question 
in a low tone of voice. The young man, thinking it 
was a joke and that he was expected to laugh, broke 
out in a loud ha-ha, much , to Father Tabb's disgust. 
Never again was he favored with a hon mot." 

While walking back and forth along the aisles of 
the study hall, lost in thought or dreaming his poet 
dreams, it was the priest's frequent custom to pause 
at the -west windows of the room and stand gazing 
out. The trees at various seasons, the alluring tints 
of the clouds, the placid bosom of the lake, the flowers 
that were visible from this point of vantage — all at- 
tracted his attention. A number of his poems were 
written during these study hours and others were 
inspired by some object that caught his eye as he 
paused at the windows of the hall. 

THE LAKE 

I am a lonely woodland lake. 
The trees that round me grow, 

[41] 



FATHER TABB 

The glimpse of heaven above me, make 
The Slim of all I know. 

The mirror of their dreams to be 

Alike in shade and shine, 
To clasp in Love's captivity, 

And keep them one — is mine. 

This refers to a lake in the eolleg-e gi'onnds which 
was excavated by a member of the Fiienlty, Father 
Vnibert, Vice-President of the College. This lake 
Avas in plain view from the stndy liall windows and 
Father Tabb delighted to watch, especially at the 
twilight time, the changing surface of the waters and 
the play of light and shade npon them... 

Other gems jotted down at this time are: "Indian 
Summer," which was suggested to the poet by the 
gorgeous tints of a red gum tree outside the window ; 
"Winter Twilight," "Joy," and the widely known 
"Fern Song"- — probably the most frequently quoted 
of all his poems. The- little fern that inspired this 
beautiful thought stood in the window of the study 
hall and while gazing out, on a dark, rainy day, the 
priest noticed the rhythmical, dancing motion of the 
little leaves and gave to the world this charming ex- 
ponent of his own bright optimism, which always led 
him to look for a lesson of cheer in any circumstance, 
however dark. "While bearing to us a message straight 
from his nature-loving heart, the little song is so 
dainty and has siTcli charm in its rhj'thm that it grips 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

tlie iniiul and heart ami sings itself over and over to 
all who voad it — the very emhodiment of clieerfnlness. 

FERN SONG 

Dance to the beat of the rain, little fern. 
And spread out your palms again, 

And say, "Tho' the sun 

Hath my vesture spun, 
He had labored, alas, in vain 

But for the shade 

That the cloud hath made. 
And the gift of the dew and the rain." 

Then laugh and upturn 

All j'-our fronds, little fern, 
And rejoice in the beat of the rain. 

Father Tabb loved to be \vith tlie students, and when 
h^ appeared on the campus they hailed him with de- 
light, and he was always made the central figure in a 
group of joyous youngsters w-ho idolized him . . . 
recognizing and realizing the deep and lasting affection 
that he felt for them. It is said at the school that 
those who knew him best were unable to tell w'hich 
w^as greater, his heart or his genius — both seemed 
boundless. » 

An inveterate punster, many of his boys claimed 
that he arose each morning with an entirely new set 
of witticisms, and his progress through the college 
refectory at breakfast was enlivened by his humorous 
oddities M'hich left peals of laughter in his wake. His 

[43] 



FATHER TABB 

fun was without tinge of bitterness or irony and his 
brilliant flashes left neither cut nor sting. The mer- 
riment which he aroused was as the sunshine — pure 
and sweet ; and those who eagerly crowded round Mm 
were secure from any fear that his shafts would cause 
a heartache or leave a wound, however slight. 

He often joined the students in their walks, when 
he would at times express himself with the artlessness 
of a child ; then he would burst forth in a torrent of 
witty sayings that marked the man and the thinker. 

Naturally shy and reserved, he avoided whenever 
possible any public gatherings or meetings Avith 
strangers; and this shyness increased rather than 
diminished with his ripening years. He used to say 
that there was nobody in the world that he hadn't 
seen that he wanted to see. That he did not want to 
meet any more people than he knew already. 

When illustrious dignitaries came to the college <io 
celebrate some feast day or other event, ' ' Father Tabb 
would steal off to the hills and the dales, to hold sweet 
converse with nature and to gather material for his 
immortal verse; as has been said of other great 
men — he wa's never so little alone as when alone. ' 

On the eve of the Feast of St. Charles he could 
always be seen tfudging the six miles down the pike 
to Ellicott City in order to escape the swarm of 
visitors who always descended upon the college on that 
occasion. 

I am indebted to M. S. Pine (Sister Mary Paulina) 
for the following anecdotes: "One day Father Tabb 

[44] 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

was particularly requested to be on hand to help en- 
tertain four bishops who were hourly expected. The 
smile on his face could not be misinterpreted. He was 
soon out of sight in his beloved haunts in the woods, 
where he spent the day. As the whistle told him late 
in the afternoon that the guests had departed, he 
sauntered back to the College. On the way one of the 
Faculty met him and asked: "Why didn't you stay 
and see the Bishops?" "I didn't want to meet my 
forefathers, (four Fathers) " was the witty rejoinder. 
"In the same spirit of distaste for great functions, 
he later declined an invitation of the Reverend Father 
(now Monsignor) Mackin of Washington, to be present 
at the laying of the corner-stone of St. Paul's Church, 
of which Father Mackin was Pastor. Here are Father 
Tabb 's regrets : 

St. Peter is the corner-stone, 
And if you build on Paul, 

I greatl}^ fear 

Ere many a j^ear 
Your Church is doomed to fall. 

So pray excuse 

If I refuse 
To heed your invitation, 

Or have no heart 

To take a part 
In such a Mackin-ation." 

Bishop O'Connell of Richmond, Virginia, relates 
the folloAving incident : When Bishop Foley of Michi- 

[45] 



FATHER TABB 

gan was the guest of His Eminence, Cardinal G-ibbons, 
the two were invited to dine at St. Charles College. 
Father Tabb was asked to write the. invitation, which 
he did, thus: 

"Dear Cardinal Gibbons: 
With all your red ribbons, 
Pray lend us the light of your face ; 

And bring with you Holy 

John Michigan Foley 

" ("Who hopes some day to be in your place) ." 

In his younger days Father Tabb attended the 
funeral of an old gentleman who was known to have 
led rather a wild life ; this was before the use of the 
padded top to the casket, and to avoid the hollow 
sound of the clods falling into the open grave, a 
quantity of shavings were placed upon the top of the 
case. Someone standing behind him leaned over his 
shoulder and whispered: "Mr. Tabb, what's all that 
they 're putting in ? " Without an instant 's hesitation 
or the least change of expression, he replied: "Kin- 
dling!" 

Upon an other occasion he was visiting a friend in 
a hospital. A patient was to be operated upon but was 
anxious to see a priest before being taken to the 
operating room. Knowing that Father Tabb was in 
the house, one of the physicians asked if he would 
be willing to see the lady. He said that certainly he 
would do whatever he could and that he thought it 

[46] 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

most fitting" "that tlie old lady be opened witli 
prayer. ' ' 

In appearance Father Tabb was slender of fig'ure, 
slightly above medinm height, homely of face, with 
strong, prominent features. On one occasion, passing 
a stranger on the streets of Baltimore he stopped, held 
out his hand and said, with a twinkle in his eye : ' ' How 
do you do, friend ; until I met you I thought I wa^ the 
ugliest man alive!" Needless to say that the other 
took no offense. 

The autograph cartoon of himself, given to the 
writer by Sister Mary Paulina of the Georgetown Con- 
vent of the Visitation, he sent to a friend whom he had 
never seen but was a great admirer of hi^ genius as a 
writer. He said: ''To disabuse your notion of the 
'poet,' I sent you a matter-of-fact presentment of 

the "man" who is always, dear , Your Servant 

in Christ, John B. Tabb." Below the cartoon was 
written : 

This is the Catholic Priest 

Who in piety never increased. 

With the world and the devil 

He kept on a level, 

But from flesh he was wholly released ! 

At one time when in great poverty. Father Tabb 
sold a poem "The Cloud" to Harper's Magazine for 
the sum of ^fteen dollars; with this amount he pur- 
chased a pair of shoes and other necessities and then 
wrote the following: 

[47] 



FATHER TABB 

One day with feet upon the ground 

I stood among the crowd : 
The next, with sole renewed, I found 

A footing on "The Cloud!" 

''The Cloud" was later published in his poems 
which came out in 1894 and is one of his longest pro- 
ductions, containing eight four-line stanzas. 

At the time of Father Tabb 's death a writer in the 
Baltimore Sun said of him : " In manner he was cor- 
dially responsive or shy and reserved, according to his 
degree of intimacy with those with whom he was asso- 
ciated. About Ellicott City his face and figure were 
familiar to the entire community. Not only the boyi^ 
of St. Charles College but those of Rock Hill College 
and those of Ellicott City were his ardent admirers 
and close friends. A resident of that town speaking 
of him says : " A boy, a genuine boy was Father T^^bb ! 
And the stories he could tell! There was never any 
trouble in finding a stable boy to drive Father Tabb 
out to the college ! ' ' This same gentleman also cited 
many instances of the priest's goodness and gener- 
osity — telling of cases where he had helped needy 
boys, of many a pair of shoes that found their way in 
secret to barefoot lads, and of clothes smuggled to 
those in need of them. 

"Half way between Ellicott City and St. Charles 
College resided some Virginia friends of Father Tabb 
and their home was for many years an almost daily in- 
terlude in the priest's long walks about the country. 

[48] 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

Here, and in the homes of a few other families, the 
poet came and went as the mood impelled him. Al- 
ways a welcome guest, he here cast aside reserve and 
was frankly interested in the affairs of the day, ready 
to discuss with boyish enthusiasm topics light or 
serious, the last novel, the last drama — for he now 
and again attended a good play — an inspiring con- 
cert, or the affairs of the nation. But from strangers, 
denizens of the outer world, Father Tabb fled as does 
the wild deer, to the forests. Social gatherings always 
found him like Bill Nye's ghost, "of an unsociable dis- 
position and always going the other way. ' ' 

Dr. Magri says: "He loved his friends with all the 
ardour and intensity of his generous soul. To him 
friendship was something eternal; this may -explain 
why he would never bid goodbye, to his friends and 
why he ^^•ould almost feel offended did one of them say 
goodb3'e to him — even though in bod,y absent, his 
friends were in spirit constantly with him, then why 
goodbye? It has been said (and likelj^ with truth) 
that no one ever saw him departing from the college 
for his summer vacation ; several days before the an- 
nual commencement his room would be found vacant — 
the bird had flown with no goodbye, no sad parting." 

Another peculiarity exhibited by Father Tal3b along 
the same line was his aversion to ever seeing again a 
young man whom he had loved as a .youth. A lawyer 
in Washington who, when at St. Charles, was very in- 
timate with Father Tabb asked him to come and pay 

[49] 



•FATHER TABB 

him a visit, but no — Father Tabb wished to remember 
him as the hoy he had loved, and not to know him as 
the successful lawyer. In response to the invitation 
the priest sent the following: 

ALTER IDEM 

'Tis what thou wast — not what thou art, * 

Which I no longer know — 
That made thee sovereign of my heart, 

And serves to keep thee so. 

And couldst thou, coming to the throne, 

Thy Self, unaltered, see. 
Thou mighst the occupant disown 

And scout his sovereignty ! 

"At the beginning and end of each summer vaca- 
tion, ' ' quoting again from Dr. Magri, ' ' it was the cus- 
tom of Father Tabl3 to spend several days with the 
Bishop and with the priests at St. Peter's old Cathe- 
dral Rectory (Richmond, Virginia). We priests 
looked eagerly for his coming, which had the effect of 
a refreshing breeze. We all felt spiritually invigor- 
ated by personal contact with a man so truly great, 
who endeavored to hide his greatness under the cloak 
of simplicity and even drollery. Arriving at a house, 
after having earnestly inquired after the health of 
each one. Father Tabb would proceed forthwith to 
what he regarded as a prime .duty to his friends, that 
of putting them or keeping them in a good humor by 

[50] 



OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 

the narration of a series of jokes so original, so apt and 
so pointed, as to convulse his auditors with laughter 
and, at the same time, excite their wonder. His 
friends, especially in Baltimore, Richmond and other 
parts of Maryland and Virginia, were numerous. 
These heartily welcomed him to their homes and 
looked for his visits with the keenest and most pleas- 
urable anticipation." 

When passing through Richmond Father Tabb 
always visited the old Westmoreland Club — that . 
haunt, since ante-bellum days, of man}^ of the most 
prominent sons of the Old Dominion. Upon one occa- 
sion someone spoke of "taking a smile" — the poet- 
priest immediately wrote the following: 

"A man may smile and smile and be a villain." 
How far the lip below the nose 

'Tis difficult to say. 
But every indication shows 
It 'smiles, it 'smiles away! 
With my compliments to the Westmoreland Club. 

This little verse, ornamented with a cartoon likeness /^^^f 
of the author, still hangs in the Club ; the accom- ■ ~^ 
panying facsimile was secured through the kindness of 
the late James C. Martin of Richmond. 



t 



[31] 



CHAPTER VII 
THE MUSICIAN 

Reference has already been made to Father Tabb 's 
great talent and love for music- — it had .been al- 
most an obcession with him since childhood. He had 
quite a reputation as a pianist, especially in Balti- 
more where, when released from his college duties, 
he would often perform for his friends. 

It was his custom on bright holy days when the 
students were out of doors, to slip unobserved to 
the grand piano in the large recreation hall and play 
to his heart 's content — usually some wierd strain. 
Here he was lost to the world around him, wholly ab- 
sorbed in the wonderful melodies which he evoked. 
The students would often, at such times, watch him 
from a distance ; as he appeared to lose all knowl- 
edge of his surroundings, with his fingers (modeled 
after those of Liszt) running rapidly over the kej^s, 
his long, gaunt body swaying with the melody. We 
may imagine that it was on such occasions as these, 
when repeating over and over again some soul-stir- 
ring strain, that there came to him his brightest 
poetic fancies. And often in the dusk of evening 
he would steal to the college music room where for 
hours he would fill the darkness with melody. 

[52] 




)WiM ^Ov\ Wm- W|o "wWvu H^VI/dSX 



v\aa^^va^ 



C'A'^virs Jc^x^ 






THE MUSICIAN 

But his music was uot all withiu the college walls ; 
the ripple aud charming lightness of his piano play- 
ing may be heard in many of his poems and in others 
there is the full, tender minor strain so dear to his 
heart. At times he selected for some literary gem 
a musical theme and in his vivid imagination heard 
melodies that no common ear could discerii. 

Mr. EdAvin Litchfield Turnbull Avho has made 
famous the "Melody from Lanier's Flute," also set, 
to music several songs Avritten by Father Tabb. In 
a letter dated November 24, 1 915, he gave me a 
gem from the poet's pen, "Somewhere," that has 
never been published. The original was sent to Mr. 
Turnbull who still has it in his possession. In writ- 
ing of his friendship for Father Tabb, he says : 

"Some time in 1887, as a small boy editor of a 
tiny amateur journal called 'The Acorn,' I first 
made the acquaintance of that rare and sunny nature 
in AAdiose heart there was always a particular soft 
spot for boys. 

"At the time Father Tabb was engaged in coax- 
ing Latin Grammar into boys at St. Charles College, 
in Ellicott City. Would that it had been my privi- 
lege to study Latin under such auspices and to hear 
some of those lessons, sparkling Avith a quaint AAdiim- 
sical humor for which the poet-priest Avas famous. 

"His first contribution to 'The Acorn' AA^as an 
exquisite little poem 'The Reaper,' for AAdiich I 
later composed a musical setting; and then began 

[53] 



FATHER TABB 

a delightful friendship, lasting over many years. I 
tried my hand at other verses of his, 'One April 
Morn' and 'Lullaby Town,' and always looked 
forward with keen delight to visits from the author. 
Whenever the slim, shy figure in priestly garb ap- 
peared in my office doorway I knew that a rare 
treat was in store for me, and business was speedily 
forgotten while Father Tabb talked of our songs, 
or his Latin Grammar, or Sidney Lanier; his 
sprightly conversation interspersed with inimitable 
jokes, which I often begged him to send to comic 
papers. He could have made a fortune writing for 
'Life' or 'Puck.' 

"It was on the occasion of one of these visits to 
my office that he spoke of the quaint melody which 
Lanier played in-prison, and which through the many 
years since had haunted his memory. I almost had 
to drag him to a nearby music store, where I got a 
piano and took down the air as Father Tabb gave it 
to me from memory, long years after those prison 
days which Lanier's velvet-toned flute had cheered 
and softened. 

"Sometimes I had a characteristic note from him 
like this: 

St. Charles College, 
Ellicott City, Md. 
December 9, 1899. 

Dear Edwin : 

I herewith send you the promised lines, which I 

[54] 



THE MUSICIAN 

hope 3^011 may wed to some eligible air, if you find 
them worth using. Ever j^ours, 

Lovingly, 

JOHN B. TABB. 

Here followed the lines : 

"SOMEWHERE" 

"Somewhere beneath the blinding snows — 
A smouldering senser, burns my rose ; 
But Love alone the secret knows 
Till Spring appear. 

Somewhere in unimagined deeps, 
My star, a radiant dreamer, sleeps; 
But Love alone the secret knows, 
Till Night is near." 

"And on another visit he handed me a faded, yel- 
low MS bearing the title 'Genevieve,' saying it 
had lain for a score of years in a drawer in his desk, 
and that I might have it to put to music. I have 
' often wondered since if ' Genevieve ' were a ro- 
mantic chapter out of the poet's own life, or does 
it rpfer to Coleridge's famous poem of that name? 
. ' ' That Father Tabb 's beautiful soul was brimming 
over with music must be evident to all who read 
the exquisite lyric gems he has left behind. There 
is music in every line of verse that he wrote. I am 

[55] 



FATHER TABB 

more grateful that I can say, for the rich privilege 
accorded me of his friendship. I can appreciate now 
much more than I di-d in those days of boyish en- 
thusiasm how much the friendship has meant to me. 

''May Father Tabb's influence for the nobler 
things of life grow ever sweeter as the years pass. ' ' 

In speaking of his great love for music, one of 
Father Tabb's pupils says that if on the weekly holi- 
day he did not go to Baltimore one would be, sure 
to find him at the piano in the Recreation Hall in- 
dulging his passion for classical music. His favorite 
song was The, Earl King, which he even attempted 
to sing in his thin piping voice. When seated at the 
piano he completely lost himself in rapture and fre- 
quently declared that no musical instrument could 
excel the human voice, and that his greatest pleasure 
was grand opera well rendered. 

He abhorred the modern rag-time and would leave 
the room if any one began to play this class of music. 
Soon after the pianola was invented the Pastor of 
a neighboring parish gave a musicale at the college. 
In deference to Father Tabb, he began with a 
classical selection — played in a most mechanical 
way; but the piece was hardly begun when the old 
priest sprang to his feet, rushed to the pianola, and 
ordered him to stop. "You are butchering it," he 
cried, "let me beat the time for you!" He began to 
indicate the time, waving his arm, but the operator 
was utterly unable to follow him and after a few 
measures Father Tabb left the hall in disgust, vow- 

[56] 



THE MUSICIAN 

ing that if it were in his power he would break up 
every such instrument that robbed music of its very 
soul. 

"The Reaper" which was set to music by Mr. 
Turnbull was very popular as a song and was par- 
ticularly admired by Dr. Garnett of the British 
Museum in London. 

THE REAPER 

Tell me whither, Maiden June, 
Down the dusky slope of noon 
With thy sickle of a moon, 
Goest thou to reap? 

Fields of Fancy by the stream 
Of Night, in silvery silence gleam, 
To heap with many a harvest-dream 
The Granary of Sleep. 



[57] 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE "WRITER OF CHILD VERSE 

Father Tabb was a great lover of childrepi and on 
his trips through Richmond always made an effort 
to be there on Sunday morning for the children's 
Mass at nine o'clock. He never seemed happier than 
when addressing them, and he had the rare faculty 
of viewing the subjects handled on such occasions 
from the child's standpoint. When in the presence 
of children he seemed literally to become one of 
them; his unaffected simplicity of character made 
one feel that he must have been dear to the heart ©f 
Him who said: "Unless ye be converted and be- 
come as little children ye shall not enter into the 
Kingdom of Heaven." • 

His volume of Child-Verse, published in 1900, teems 
with wit and -humor and sets a-peal the merry bells 
of childish laughter ; some of his fancies are unique 
indeed and he makes capital of the most unusual 
material, but through all of the little poems shine 
the kindly light of his sunny nature. I give below 
some of the most widely known. 

THE BLUEBIRD 

When God had made a host of them, 
One little flower still lacked a stem 

[581 



THE WRITER OF CHILD VERSE 

To bear its blossom blue; 
So into it he breathed a song 
And 'suddenly, with petals strong 

As wings, away it flew! 



THE TAX-GATHERER 

"And, pray, who are you?" 
Said the violet blue 
To the Bee, with surprise 
At his wonderful size 
In her eye-glass of dew 

"I, madam," quoth he, 
"Am a publican Bee, 
Collecting the tax 
Of honey and wax. 
Have you nothing for me ?" 

A LEGACY 

Do you remember, little cloud. 
This morning when you lay • — 
A mist along the river ■ — 
What the waters had to say? 

And how the many-colored flowers 
That on the margin grew. 
All promised Avhen th^ day was done 
To leave their tints to you? 

[59] 



FATHER TABB 

AMID THE ROSES 

There was laughter mid the roses 
For it was their natal day; 
And the children in the garden were 
As light of heart as they. 

There were sighs amid the roses, 

For the night was coming on ; 

And the children — weary now of play • — 

Were ready to be gone. 

There are tears amid the roses, 
For the children are asleep ; 
And the silence of the garden makes 
The lonely blossoms weep. 

BICYCLES ! TRICYCLES ! 

Bicycles ! Tricycles ! Nay, to shun laughter, 
Tricycles first, and Bicycles after; 
For surely the buyer deserves but the worst 
Who would buy cycles, failing to try cycles first ! 

HIGH AND LOW 

A Boot and a Shoe and a Slipper 

Once lived in a Cobbler's Row: 

But the Boot and the Shoe 

Would have nothing to do 

With the Slipper, because she was low. 

[60] 



THE WRITER OF CHILD VERSE 

But the King and the Queen and their Daughter 

On the Cobbler chanced to call : 

And as neither the Boot 

Nor the Shoe would suit. 

The Slipper went off to the ball. 



FROG-MAKING 

Said Frog Papa to Frog Mama, 
"Where is our little daughter?" 
Said Frog Mama to Frog Papa, 
"She's underneath the water." 

Then down the anxious father went, 
And there, indeed, he found her, 
A-tickling tadpoles, till they kicked 
Their tails off all around her! 



THE TRYST 

Potato was deep in the dark underground. 

Tomato above in the light. 

The little tomato was ruddy and round, 

The little potato was white. 

And redder and redder she rounded above. 

And paler and paler he grew. 

And neither suspected a mutual love 

Till they met in a Brunswick Stew! 

[6i] 



FATHER TABB 
THE END OF IT 

A whole-tail dog and a half-tail dog, 
And a dog without any tail, 
Went all three out on an autumn day 
To follow a red-fox trail. 

But the dogs that carried their tails along 
Fell out, it is said, by the way; . 
And the loss of a tail and a half at the end 
Of the dogs, put an end to the fray. 

When each, as a morsel sweet, gulped down ' 
What had late been a neighbor's pride, i 
"You've kept your tails," laughed the no-tail dog, 
"But you wear them now inside!" 

A SPY 

Sighed the languid Moon to the Morning Star : 
"0 little Maid, how late you are! 
"I couldn't rise from my couch," quoth she, 
"While the Man-in-the-Moon was looking at me." 

' A LAMENT 

"0 Lady Cloud, why are you weeping?" I said. 
"Because," She made answer, "my rain-beau is 
dead." 

[62] 



THE WRITER OF CHILD VERSE 

• FOOT-SOLDIERS 

'Tis all the way to Toe-Town, 
Beyond the Knee-high hill, 
That Baby has to travel down 
To see the soldiers drill. 

One, two, three, four, five, a-row — 
A captain and his men • — 
And on the other side, you know, 
Are six, seven, eight, nine, ten. 

THE TiME-BROOD 

I wonder how the Mother-Hour 
Can feed each hungr^^ Minute, 
And see that every one of them 
Gets sixty seconds in it; 

And whether, when she goes abroad, 
She knows which ones attend her; 
For all of them are just alike 
In age and size and gender. 

PAINS-TAKING 

Take pains," growled the Tooth to the Dentist 
The same," said the Dentist, "to you." 

Then he added, "No doubt. 

Before you are out 
You'll have taken most pains of the two." 

[63] 



FATHER TABB 

Father Tabb's feeling for all children was deep 
and tender but the purity and innocence of infancy 
drew forth some of his rarest gems of verse : Sister 
Mary Paulina says: "Judging from the alluring 
loveliness with which Babyhood sits enthroned in 
Father Tabb's poetic bower, crowned and circled 
by the rosebud vines of his delicate fancy and tender 
affection, I am inclined to believe that the poet-priest 
has found a part of his beatitude in the "divine 
nurseries" — surely the "Babe Niva" must have 
welcomed him there : 

Niva, child of innocen*be, 

Dust to dust we go : 

Thou, when Winter wooed thee hence, 

"Wentest snow to snow." 

Other strikingly beautiful thoughts from his col- 
lection of poems on Babyhood are : 

AN IDOLATER 

The Baby has no skies 

But Mother's eyes. 
Nor any God above 

But Mother's love. 
His angel sees the Father's face. 
But he, the Mother 's, full of grace ; 
And yet the heavenly kingdom is 

Of such as this. 

[64] 



THE WRITER OF CHILD VERSE 

BABY 

Bab 3^ in her slumber smiling, 

Doth a captive take : 
Whispers Love: "From dreams beguiling, 

Ma}" she never wake ! ' ' 

When the lids, like mist retreating, 

Flee the azure deep. 
Wakes the new-born Joy, repeating : 

"May she never sleep!" 

A BUNCH OF ROSES 

-The rosy mouth and rosy toe 

Of little baby brother, 
Until about a month ago 

Had never met each other ; 
But nowadays the neighbors sweet. 

In every sort of weather. 
Half way with rosy fingers meet. 

To kiss and play together. 



[65] 



CHAPTER IX 
TABB AND LANIER 

"We luivo mentionod m a proi'OiUng- oliaptov the 
eloso intin\ni*y Avhieh lirew out of Fatlioi* Tabb's 
early assoeiatioii with Sidney l^anier: they Avore 
twiti-souls — Ji)oth nuij^ieians of a lii^'U order, both 
ranked among- tlie foremost poets of the Southland, 
both leaeliers of Eusylish. The eorrespondeuee of the 
two poets is a literary treasure denied the world of 
letters. "When Professor Edwin ]Minis published his 
life of l.anier he asked poruiission to use the eor- 
respondenee. but it was the express wish of Father 
Tabb that he should not: afterward in the burning 
of St. Charles College, on :\lareli lii. \9\\. all of 
Father Tabb's papers were destroyed. 

He was not often in the Tiauier home. During tlie 
lifetime of his friend, as in his later years, lie seldom 
left the seeue of iiis labors. ^Irs. ^lary Day Tiauier. 
wife of the poet, writes as follows from her home in 
Creenwieh, Conn.. ui\der date of March 15, 1915: 

''Father Tabb was so voieeless about himself! 
And he was not nuieh with us. When he was. poetry, 
nuisie. the ehiUlreu. his friend -his David — Avero 
his themes. His brief letters to me from 18S2 to his 

[66] 



TABB AND LANIER 

failing" of vision more oflon tliaii not iMU'losod an nn- 
published poom : somolinios craved my iinprossion 
of it. 

"I ahvays loved these eliildven of his faney but 
often eonld not shape u thonght in. response to liis 
tender need — for lack of nerve power. ' ' 

In speaking ot a little collectiou of Father Tabh's 
poems in her possession, she says: ''These were 
bcqneathed to me by my closest friend ^ — also Mr. 
lianier's — Miss Sarah Parley of Pennsylvania. She 
never met your uncle, she was a confirmed invalid, 
but through their common love for us and for all 
things sacred, a deep regard and tenderness grew up 
between them in a limited correspondence. Com- 
passion for her suffering and solitariness also drew 
his warm heart towards her. She was a great soul 
and lie leaned upon her in a certain way. Last June 
she Avas released at the age of seventy-six. You see 
how readily I could talk on to you of our common 
interest. Believe me 

Very sincerely yours, 

MARY DAY LANIER." 

M. S. Pine (Sister Mary Paulina) in her beautiful 
critique on Father Tabb's poems thus contrasts his 
work and Sidney Lanier's: 

''Their poetic styles are in remarkable contrast. 
Rich, magniticeut, diffuse, Lanier rolls out his verse 
in great waves of song, and, Avhile they are pervaded 

[67] 



FATHER TABB 

•with a highly sensuous beauty and overflowing with 
human sympathies, here and there you encounter 
lofty conceptions of the greatness of God which 
bring you to your knees in worship and make mani- 
fest the secret of the bond "that so welded Father 
Tabb's soul to his. But Father Tabb moves and 
breathes in the heavenly atmosphere — he would 
have everything in nature, in art, in life, bring us 
into closer relations with the Creator, with the Re- 
deemer, with Heaven; he Avould sow a seed in our 
heart of faith heroic, of hope unfading, of love un- 
utterable." 

An English critic says : " It is interesting to con- 
trast the long, voluminous, rushing flow of Lanier 
with the minute, delicately carved work of his 
countryman. Which is the greater poet, let those 
who like giving marks decide ; but Father Tabb, 
■working within the limits which the nature of his 
art invariably determines, piping, so to speak, upon 
his flute, can do things which Lanier's great four- 
manual organ could never accomplish." 

Many of Father Tabb 's poems refer to Sidney 
Lanier and his first volume is dedicated thus : 

AVE : SIDNEY LANIER - 

Ere Time's horizon line was set, 
Somewhere in space our spirits met, 
Then o'er the starry parapet 
Came wandering here. 

(68] 



* 



TABB AND LANIER 

And now that thou art gone again 
Bej^ond tlxe verge, I haste amain 
(Lost echo of a loftier strain) 
To greet thee there. 

The following gems of thonght also bear reference 
to this beloved friend. For this we have Father 
Tabb's own statement, preserved for us by Father 
Perrig ■ — of whom more anon. 

MY STAR 

Since that the dewdrop holds the star 

The long night through, 
Perchance the satellite afar 

Reflects the dew. 
And while tliine image in my heart 

I)oth constant shine, 
There, haply, in thy heaven apart, 

Thou keepest mine. 

LOVE'S m^BLA 

My thoughts ^y to thee as the bees 
To find their favorite flower; 
Then home, with honeyed memories 
Of many a fragrant hour: 

For with thee is the place apart, 
Where sunshine ever dAvells; 
The Hybla, Avhence my hoarding heart 
Would fill its wintry cells. 

[69] 



FATHER TABB 

TO SIDNEY^ANIER 

The dewdrop holds the heaven above 
"Wherein the lark, unseen, 
Outpours a rhapsody of love . 
That fills the space between. 

My heart a dewdrop is, and thou, 
Dawn-spirit, far away, 
Fillest the void between us now 
"With an immortal lay. 

ON THE FORTHCOMING VOLUME OF 
LANIER'S POEMS 

Snow ! Snow ! Snow ! 
Do thy worst, "Winter, but know, but know. 
That when the Spring cometh a blossom shall blow 
From the heart of the poet, that sleeps below. 
And his name to the ends of the earth shall go, 

In spite of the snow1 

IN TOUCH 

(Published from the MS by Dr. Browne) 

How slight so e'er the motion be. 

With palpitating hand. 
The gentlest breaker of the sea 

Betrays it to the land. 
And though a vaster mystery 

[70] 



TABB AND LAKIER 

Hath set our souls apart, 
Each wafture from eternity 
Betrays thee to my heart. 

The poem "Robin" is generally supposed to have 
been inscribed to the little red-breast friend of 
Father Tabb, but not so — it was written and sent 
to Sidney Lanier's youngest son, Robin Lanier. 

ROBIN 

■Come to me, Robin, the daylight is dying! 

Come to me now ! 
Come, ere the cypress-tree over me sighing, 
Dark with the shadow-tide circle my brow; 
Come, ere oblivion speed to me, flying 

Swifter than thou! 

Come to me, Robin, The far echoes waken 

Cold to my cry! 
0! with the swallow-wing, love overtaken, 
Hence to the Echo-land, homeward, to fly ! 
Thou art my life, Robin, Oh ! love-forsaken. 

How can I die? 

AT LANIER'S GRAVE 

I stand beneath the native tree 
That guards the spot where thou art laid ; 
For since thy light is lost to me 
I loiter in the shade. 

[71] 



FATHER TABB 

I lean upon the rugged stone 
As on the breast from which I came, 
To learn 'tis not my heart alone 
That bears thy sacred name. 

This beautiful tribute to his beloved Lanier was 
not published. It was taken by Father Perrig from 
the manuscript and from his notes we learn that 
Lanier's favorite among Father Tabb's poems was 

THE SHADOW 

ShadoAv, in thy fleeing form I see 
The friend of fortune who once clung to me. 
In flattering light thy constancy is shown; 
In darkness, thou wilt leave me all alone. 



[72] 



CHAPTER X 
THE POET 

''Poetrj^ is the blossoming and fragrance of all hu- 
man knowledge, human thought, passions, emotions, 
language. ' ' — Coleridge. 

Shelley defines poetry as "the record of the best 
and happiest moments of the happiest and best 
minds," and Longfellow says: "Beautiful are all the 
forms of nature when transfigured by the miraculous 
power of poetry." 

Any one of the above definitions is a true exposition 
of the poems of Father Tabb — in them our human 
emotions blossom into rarest beauty and the com- 
monest forms of nature are glorified by his genius un- 
til we stand transfixed with wonder at his God-given 
gift of interpretation. 

Nothing, to him, is ' ' common or unclean ; ' ' the low- 
liest weed that bends under the dust of the roadside, 
the tiny blossom of the wild flower, furnish an in- 
spiration which brings forth such strains of melody, 
such richness of thought as pass our understanding. 
To the ordinary man the goldenrod is but a common 
wild flower which brightens for a time the dullness of 
the fading autumn fields, but transformed by his mar- 
velous imagination we see it through his eyes : 

[73] 



FATHER TABB 

GOLDEN-ROD 

As Israel, in days of old, 

Beneath the prophet's rod, 
Amid the waters, backward rolled, 

A path triumphant trod ; 
So, while thy lifted staff appears 

Her pilgrim steps to guide 
The Autumn journeys on, nor fears 

The "Winter's threatening tide. 

All things are transformed by the Midas touch oF 
his genius — and so clear, so simple, so powerful is the 
presentation that we scarcely realize the marvel of it 
all ; his beautiful, brilliant ideas are given to the world 
with all the simplicity of his unassuming child-heart 
and until we stop to think, to try and analyze, we do 
not really appreciate the greatness of his genius. He 
is so simple, so lovable in his verse that we simply 
enjoy, as we revel in the unanalyzed beauties of a 
spring day. 

"In the literary world," says an unknown writer 
in the Baltimore Sun, "there is no name associated 
with St.. Charles College that has reflected greater 
glory to the alma mater than that of Father Tabb, 
whose rare gifts as a poet are recognized on both sides 
of the Atlantic. A prominent British critic some 
years ago placed Father Tabb in the front rank of 
living American poets, and a writer in the London 
Spectator did not hesitate to say that Reverend John 

[74] 



THE POET 

B. Tabb was one of the greatest living poets in the 
English language. 

"Father Tabb was the author of several small 
volumes of exquisite verse — poems, lyrics, quatrains 
— that suggest the beauty of Keats, the imagination 
and spirituality of Shelley and the love of nature 
which is "the distinguishing charm of Wordsworth. 
The poems are characterized by a delicate fancy 
scarcely surpassed by any poetry in our language and 
a depth of tenderness as rare as it is beautiful. An 
appreciative critic says of him: 'The many poems 
concerning silence, including the fine sonnet, seem 
the exj)ressiou of a hushed awe of such a mind in 
presence of a continual and universal mystery. Life 
is a moment of sound between two silences. Yet there 
is no austerity, other than artistic, no renunciation 
or neglect of the beautiful things of common life in 
view of the ultimate attainment of the ideal. It is 
rather that through this association with the eternal, 
the things of this life gain a dignity and sweetness." 

Thus he writes of death: 

TO DEATH. 

So sweet to tired mortality the night 

Of Life's laborious day. 
That God Himself, o'erwearied of the light, 

Within its shadow lay. 

In certainty of the future could faith be more ex- 
quisiteh^ expressed than in this poem? 

[75] 



FATHER TABB 

EVOLUTION. 

Out of the dusk a shadow, 

Then a spark; 
Out of the cloud a silence, 

Then a lark ; 
Out of the heart a rapture. 

Then a pain ; 
Out of the dead, cold ashes, 

Life again ! 

Beneath this Father Perrig- wrote : ' ' He sums up 
our nineteenth century philosophy" — Price, 
Nazareth, N. C. 

The "Price" here quoted is Father Price, a friend 
of Father Tabb. 

The poems of Father Tabb are never long. Someone 
has likened them to flute-notes clear and sweet, as com- 
pared to the rich, deep organ-tones of Sidney Lanier's 
verse. There are quatrains that like a dewdrop reflect 
the whole of heaven. Gems of thought they most truly 
are, and in lyric quality unexcelled. 

They interpret the human heart with unerring 
sympathy and love, and nature with a peculiarly deli- 
cate fancy and striking imagery ; yet he retains, 
withal, the beautiful simplicity which ever marks his 
life, his genius, his faith. What airy imagining is 
here : 

■ [76] 



THE POET 

PHANTOMS 

Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, 

flakes of snow, 
For which, through naked limbs, the winds 

A-monrning go ? 
Or are ye angels, bearing home 

The host unseen 
Of truant spirits to be clad 

Again in green? 

One of the most valuable sources of information re- 
garding the more intimate side of Father Tabb's 
writings is a collection of notes made by the late 
Reverend Joseph M. Perrig. It is seldom that a 
biographer has access to material such as this; these 
notes were made in Father Tabb's volumes, and made 
with no tliought but to throw light on some point 
which, without explanation from the author lost a 
great deal of its fqrce or beauty. This is truly first 
hand information, the poet's own interpretation of his 
work. 

Father Perrig was a native of Switzerland who 
came to Virginia when a boy and, after teaching m 
Richmond for several years, entered St. Charles Col- 
lege. He^ was older than the average student, being 
in Ids twenty-fourth year when he began his course. 
He was gentle, unselfish and lovaWe-in disposition and 
(partly owing to the fact that he was from Virginia) 
he enjoyed a close friendship with the poet-priest. 

[77] , 



FATHER TABB 

His more mature mind appreciated the great value of 
the explanations which Father Tabb gave of many of 
his poems and he jotted them down in the proper 
place, i. e., under the poem discussed by Father Tabb. 

Father Perrig's ministry covered a period of only 
eleven years; at his death, in December, 1913, he be- 
queathed his books to Reverend Thomas Rankin and 
among them were the two annotated volumes of Fatlier 
Tabb 's poems, the only authentic record extant, I dare 
say, of the priest's own expressions regarding his 
works. Treasures indeed are these little volumes! 
Through them we gain an insight into the heart and^ 
mind of the poet which but for his student's keen 
discernment of their great value would have been 
forever lost to the world. 

Many of Father Tabb's friends and admirers tell 
of the magic quickness of his mind, of the brilliant 
epigram or the witty pun uttered on the inspiration 
of the moment, but from Father Perrig alone we 
learn that he spent years of thought and labor on some 
of his verses. For instance : 

DEUS ABSCONDITUS 

My God has hid himself from me 
• Behind whatever else I see : 
Myself — the nearest mystery — • 
As far beyond my grasp as He. 

And yet, in darkest night, I know 
"While lives a doubt-discerning glow 



THE POET 

That larger lights above it throw 
These shadows on the vale below. 

The first four lines were written in 1892 ; Father 
Tabb then worked on the other four lines until 
March, 1896. 

''His longest poem, 'Ruin','' says Father Perrig, 
' ' not yet printed and which he read to me on June 10, 
1897, is the fruit of seventeen years of his thoughts 
and works." 

"Ruin" was not included in any of Father Tabb's 
published works and, so far as I have been able to 
discover, was never given to the world. 

These annotations also give an insight into the 
|)oet 's attitude towards his work : under the poem — ■ 

• THE SECRET 

'Tis not what I am fain to hide 
That doth in deepest darkness dwell. 
But. what my tongue hath often tried 
Alas, in vain, to tell — 

we find the following : ' ' Father Tabb 's favorite ! He 
says if we are sad we do not feel like talking. We are 
not -able to give expression to our thoughts of pleasure 
or sad]iess, for as soon as we begin to talk we break the 
til read of thought." 

[79] 



FATHER TABB 
Another favorite of his is 

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 

The sculptor in the marble found 
Her hidden from the world around, 

As in a donjon keep : 
With gentle hand he took away 
The coverlet that o'er her lay, 

But left her fast asleep. 

And still she slumbers; e'en as he 
Who saw in far futurity 

What now before us lies — 
The fairest vision that the stream 
Of night, subsiding, leaves agleam 

Beneath the noonday skies. 

The day after the death of his ward, Edward J. 
Carroll, on October 24, 1902, Father Tabb wrote the 
following — which was never published : 

UNITED 

Here buried side by side 
We long have waited with between us two 
A place for you. 

The Powers of Darkness tried ^ 
To chill our hearts to ashes ; but behold 
They grew not cold. 

[So] . 



THE POET 

You journey far and wide ; 
Our eyes were on you till they turned your way 
To where we lay. 

Henceforth, all fate defied, 
Our kindred dust commingling, three in one — 
We slumber, son. 

"The best of my work, according to my judgment," 
said Father Tabb, "is 

LIMITATION 

Beneath, above me, or below ; 
Never can'st thou farther go 
Than the spirit's octave-span. 
Harmonizing God and Man. 

Thus within the iris-bound, 
Light, a prisoner, is found; 
Thus within my soul I see 
Life in Time's captivity." 

One of the professors at St. 04iarles College, Father 
Charles Judge, wrote a life of his brother, Father "W. 
Judge, S. J., an Alaskan Missionary. The dedication 
of the volume was written by Father Tabb : 

HIS MISSION 

'Twas not for gain of glittering gold he trod 
Alaska 's frozen loin ; 

[8i] 



FATHER TABB 

Nay, but the superscription of their God 
On colder hearts to coin ! 

One of the poet's favorite haunts was a beautiful 
lane in the College grounds, known as the Rose Walk ; 
an a Spring day, while loitering here he wrote on a 
scrap of paper 

THE DANDELION 

With locks of gold today, ^ 

Tomorrow silver-gray ; 
Then blossom-bald. Behold, 
Man, thy fortune told ! 

Just opposite the College stood ''The Manor," a 
magnificent place, the home of. Charles Carroll of 
Carrollton, now occupied by his descendants. Father 
Tabb often spent hours in The Manor woods and 
upon one of these rambles wrote : 

TO A WOOD-ROBIN 

Lo, where the blossoming woodland wakes 

From wintry slumbers long, 
.Thy heart, a bud of silence, breaks 

To ecstacy of song. 

V 

Since all truly great natures retain the simplicity 
and heart of childhood along with the attainments of 
manhood, so Father Tabb, like Eugene Field and 

[82] 



THE POET 

Robert Louis Stevenson, rejoiced in a whimsical, 
merry and frolicsome side of his nature. This is ex- 
emplified in his volume of Child Verse and in "Quips 
and Quiddits,'' published in 1907. 

His views on the woman (juestion were stated with 
finality when he wrote, as far back as 1897: 

WOMAN 

Shall she come down, and on our level stand? 
Nay, God forbid it ! May a Mother's eyes — 
Love's earliest home, the heaven of babylaud — 
Still bend above us as we rise ! 

Father Perrig- has the following written just be- 
neath this verse : 

"Every woman ought to learn this by heart and re- 
flect on it deeply — imagine a woman mayor or 
sheriff!" 

Some of Father Tabb's best poems and some of his 
most brilliant sallies were written in his post-card 
correspondence with his literary associates and 
friends. One of the cleverest and most timely of these 
"hits" was the verse written when there was a ques- 
tion raised as to Poe's right to a place in the hall of 
fame : 

EXCLUDED 

Into the charnel hall of fame 

The dead alone should go. 

Then write not there the living name 

Of Edgar Allan Pee. 

[83] 



FATHER TABB 

About this same time iie expressed his opinion ot 
the members of the Senate who remUn-ed the decision 
against Poe: 

If Harry Thurston Peek at Poe, 
His Peek-ability to show, 
.'Tis well for him that such a foe 
No long-er can return the bUnv. 

And upon the occasion of the Poe Centenary he re- 
vised the above so that it read : 

His Peck-ability to show 

Let Harry Thurston Peck at Poe, 

And thank his stars like Matthews, Brander, 

That Poe is silent now to slander. 

Or by the scourge with wliieh they score him, 

He'd make them bite the dust before him. 

In the Poe Room at the University of Virginia is the 
framed autogTaphy copy of the following: 

TO EDGAR ALLAN POE 

On the Fiftieth Anniversary of His Death. 

Dead fifty years? No so. 
Nay, fifty years ago 
Death, obloquy and spite. 
To curse his ashes came. 
. But lo, the living light 

Beneath the breath of shame 
Indignant, spurned tiie night, 
And withered them in tlame. 

[S4] 



THE POET 

Father Tabb, althoug-h a g-ood deal of a recluse, was 
a keen observer of current events and took a great 
interest in the affairs of the world in general. He was 
keenly alive to political situations and occasionally 
gave vent to his feelings on the subject in such pro- 
ductions as 

THE UNITED STATES' TO THE PIIILTPINOS 

We've come to give you Liberty 
To do what'er we choose; 
Or clean extermination, 
If you venture to refuse. 

or in what ho facetiously called "a sneeze," in which 
lie did not hesitate to criticise any person, party or 
country if he saw fit. 

Upon the occasion of the lynching of a negro which 
took place in Delaware, he wrote the following re- 
markable play upon words : 

Wore Ilarriel Beeoher well-aware 
Of what was done in Delaware, 
Of that unwholesome smell-aware. 
She'd make all heaven and hell-aware; 
And ask John Brown to tell-hor-where 
Henceforth she best might sell-hei--ware ! 

An editorial in one of the Richmond, Virginia, pa- 
pers at the time of the poet's death spoke of him as 
follows: "Father John Bannister Tabb was a very 

[85] 



FATHER TABB 

remarkable person. He was a born man of tlie world, 
good fellow, poet and philosopher, consistently and 
sincerely consecrated to religious service. 

"No sweeter or more genial character than his ever 
gladdened a wide circle of friends. He loved laughter 
and fun and was a born humorist, but he knew Avhen 
to He serious, aiid deep and tender sympathy and 
beautiful sentiment lay close beneath the surface of his 
humor. HBe did not know how to be coarse or harsh. 
He loved the pleasures of life while its pain stirred the 
very depths of his being to affectionate and helpful 
response. ' ' 

He was a man of brilliant talent. Under date of 
November 22, 1896, Edmund C. Stedman wrote 
Professor Thomas R. Price acknowledging receipt of 
what he called "the exquisitely printed, feelingly 
written appreciation of Virginia's flawless lyrist, 
Father Tabb, ' ' as follows : 

"I know of no other modern songster who puts so 
much spontaneous feeling into the brief carols, of 
which the art is as unobtrusive as it is perfect ; for 
they have the brevity and unity of the antique and the 
soul of Christendom." 

This, most appropriately and comprehensively de- 
scribes much of Father Tabb's poetry. He often said 
that many so-called poems of great length contain 
much that is not true poetry. "It is almost impos- 
sible, ' ' he would say, ' ' ordinarily speaking, to keep up 
the true poetic vein throughout a long poem." 

Many think that amongst the English poets Father 

[86] 



THE POET 

Tabb has not been surpassed in his power of con- 
densing* "mnltuni in parvo." His conception of the 
true poet is set forth in his oft-quoted lines : 

TO A SONGSTER 
little bird, I'd be 
A poet like to thee ; 
Singing my native song, 
Short to the ear, but long 
To love and memory. 

Allusion has been made to Father Tabb's poems on 
silence : a masterly critic in the London Times remarks 
of the poem "To Silence:" "Grandure cannot be 
achieved in six lines by grandiloquence. In the im- 
mensity of what it suggests, the vast silence out of 
.which it wakes and into which it fades, that poem is 
undeniably grand." 

Dr. William Hand Browne in his sketch of Father 
Tabb in the Library of Southern Literature thus char- 
acterizes him as a poet : 

"Father Tabb's poems are all short, few extending 
bej^ond the limits of a sonnet, while many are still 
briefer, a favorite form being the quatrain. 

"Many poets when they seize a thought are apt to 
expand and develop it as a musician develops a theme ; 
Tabb condenses it, many of his poems consisting of a 
single simile or metaphor expressed in perfect phrase. 
Critics have aptly called them "cameos" — the most 
delicate art in the smallest compass. Rounded and 

[87] 



FATHER TABB 

complete, they are like dewdrops on the jewel-weed, 
each perfect and each distinct. In their tenderness 
and simplicity they remind one of Simonides or Mel- 
eager; bnt the faith of the Christian gives a depth 
which the pagan conld not attain. For the Greek poet 
there was nothing beyond — no symbolism of a life 
beyond the veil. Tender memories remained, but the 
threads of sj'mpathy broke oft' at the grave. 

"Father Tabb, like Wordsworth, is a poet of nature, 
but he does not lose himself in the vision. Lovely in 
themselves, to him the aspects of nature are far more 
lovely as symbols. To him, as to Berkeley, nature is 
a language in which God speaks to man, the poet being 
the interpreter. And the nature which is ever present 
to his memory is that of his native Virginia — its 
gentle hills, wild expanses and "smooth-sliding" 
streams ; its trees and flowei*s and birds. "Wlio that 
has ever heard the unforgettable call of the killdee at 
twilight, or the liquid fluting of the wood-robin, will 
not feel his heart swell as the poet brings them back to 
memory? So intimate are they that one doubts 
whether any reader can feel the full beauty of these 
nature-touches who does not know the land that in- 
spired them." 

On one occasion at the Virginia Hot Springs, 
Father Tabb met a grandson of ]\Ir. Garland Talia- 
ferro whom he had known years before in his native 
county. He sent him, through his grandson, the auto- 
graph copy of the following : 

[88] 



THE POET 

TO A VIRGINIAN AT THE HOT SPRINGS 

Nurtured upon luy Mother's knee, 

From this, her mountain breast, apart; 
Here nearer heaven I seem to be. 
And closer to her heart. 
''With my compliments to my old Amelia neighbor, 
Garland Taliaferro. ' ' 

But beautiful as is the symbol to Father Tabb, it 
is not the symbol but the suggested thought that is 
tlie poem. For instance: 

DEEP UNTO DEEP 

Where limpid waters lie between 
There only heaven to heaven is seen;^ 
Where tlows the tide of mutual tears, 
There only heart to heart appears. 

The poet is not one, however, who simply seizes a 
delicate fancy and clothes it with beautiful imagery; 
his little poems seem, in a way, detached, but through 
them all runs a subtile but profound philosophy, a 
philosophy felt, not formulated. St. Francis claims 
brotherhood with the birds and beasts and inanimate 
objects of nature — Father Tabb likewise felt- a kin- 
ship with all things, the wood-robin and the tender 
violet are not simply objects to be perceived through 
the senses; they are, like ourselves, children of the 
Divine Father and dear to His heart. 

Just as Father Tabb shunned all that was harsh or 

[89] 



FATHER TABB 

coarse so he delighted in all that was cheery, tender 
and gentle — his optimism was beautiful and his ten- 
derness enveloped and softened pain and sorrow. 
One of the best known of his poems (printed in every 
American anthologjO is the exquisitely tender and 
comforting one sent to a bereaved mother : 

CONFIDED 

Another lamb, Lamb of God, behold, ** 

Within this quiet fold. 

Among Thy Father's sheep, 

I lay to sleep ! 

A heart that never for a night did rest 

Beyond its mother's breast. 

Lord, keep it close to Thee, 

Lest waking, it should bleat and pine for me ! ' 

What Father Tabb wrote came from a . heart that 
knew and felt the deeper things of life, but his songs 
did not express the whole of what he felt; only now 
and then through a verse, or even through a single 
line, the deeper nature freed itself — and the melody 
grew luminous with feeling and with undreamed of 
depths of understanding and meaning. 

"The lapidary among song-makers" someone once 
called him — he was willing to heed Wordsworth 's ad- 
vice "to shine in his place and be content." He found 
his themes in the birds and flowers around him, in the 
loves and joys and sorrows of those with whom he asso- 

[90] 



THE POET 

eiated, and above all in his deep devotion to all things 
sacred. ' "He saw the spiritual in the natural and 
naturally voiced the spiritual." 

To a friend he once confided that the poetic vision 
descended upon him like a direct gift from God at a 
moment when, following the war, he did not know 
where to turn. He portrays his idea of poetry as 

A gleam of heaven ; the passion of a star 
Pleld captive in the clasp of harmony; 

A silence, shell like, breathing from afar, 
The rapture of the deejD, eternity. 

He felt a close kinship with all the manifestations 
of nature, he loved them for their purity, for their 
delicate beauty which invariably appealed to his ar- 
tist's eye, for the lessons they taught, the emotions 
they aroused, the enthusiasms they inspired and their 
symbolism of all things innocent and pure. 

The lark, the wood-robin, the rose, the lily, the 
humble dandelion and blackberry vine, the pink eiover 
and the white jessamine had each its message for 
him and through him to all lovers of nature. One of 
the most attractive, strong and original of his verses 
is 

WOOD GRAIN 

This is the way that the sap-river ran 
From the root to the top of the tree — 

Silent and dark 

Under the bark, 

[91] 



FATHER TABB 

"Working a wonderful plan 
That the leaves never know 
And the branches that grow 
On the brink of the tide never see. 

In speaking of his poem ''The Young Tenor," 
Father Tabb said: "this came to me while spending 
a night at the Brothers' Home in Richmond. I was 
asleep, when I was awakened by a beautiful tenor 
voice singing in the house opposite. He stopped as 1 
awoke but his voice rang in my ears for years. One 
night I stayed at a friend's house near Sixth and 
Leigh Streets in Richmond, when I heard another 
singer who, in moving along, sang. It was magnifi- 
cent. I was enabled to give expression to my long 
confined thought." Wlien asked in this connection if 
it was hard for him^ to get a thought, Father Tabb 
replied : ' ' No, it is harder to get rid of a thought when 
it comes ! " 

THE YOUNG TENOR 

I woke; the harbored melody 
Had crossed the slumber bar, 
And out upon the op§n sea 
<)f consciousness, afar 
Swe^tOTiward with a fainter strain, 
As echomg'ife^ dream again. 

So soft the silver sound, and clear. 
Outpoured upon t;he night, 

[92] 



THE POET 

That Silence seemed a listener 
O'erleaning with delight 
The slender moon, a finger-tip 
. Upon the portal of her lip. 

Another interesting explanation, given by Father 
Tabb to Father Perrig in his student days is that of 
the poem 

GIULIO 

' ' Father ! " — the trembling voice betrayed 
The troubled heart ; " Be not afraid, ' ' 
I softly answered — ' ' Woe is me ! ' ' 
Dead unto all but misery ! 
And 3'et, a child of innocence 
Is mine — . a son, unknowing whence 
His origin — whom, unaware 
As with an angel's watchful care, 
Thy gentle hand hath guided. Now 
He waits the consecrating vow 
Of priesthood, and to-morrow stands 
A Levite, with uplifted hands ., 
To bless thee. May a mother dare 
To look upon that face, and share. 
Unseen, the blessing of her son? 
Deny me not. So be it done 
To thee in thy last agony 
As thou now doest iTuto me ! " 

[93] 



FATHER TABB 

She had her will. Secluded there 
Within the cloistered place of prayer 
She saw, and wept ; then, all unknown, 
Shrunk back into the world, alone. 

■ Days passed. A winter's cheerless morn 

With summons came. A soul forlorn 

Craved help in danger imminent; 

And, Christlike, on his mission went 

The new ailointed. 

"Strange," he said 
"The gleams, like inspiration, shed 

Upon the dying ! There she lay, 

Poor reprobate ! life 's stormy day 

In clouds departing. Suddenly, 

As from a trance, beholding me, 
"Qiulio! hast thou come?" she cried, 

And with her arms about me, died." 

He wondered; and I turned away, 
Lest tears my secret should betray. 

A fallen woman, on her deathbed, recognizes in the 
priest her son — only a supposition on the part of the 
poet. ■ 

The reprobate here mentioned was a young woman 
from Richmond, Virginia, who lost her husband soon 
after the birth of her son and fell deeper and deeper. 
The child never knew his mother but was educated by 
his jjaternal uncle, the Protestant Bishop of Kentucky. 

[94] 



THE POET 

The boy was not a Catholic, but the poet fancies him 
to have become a priest, or rather that he might have 
become had the uncle been a Catholic Bishop. 
''Father Tabb assured me," said Father Perrig, 
"that the parents of this child were the most beautiful 
couple he ever saw. ' ' 

In speaking of his floral lyrics. Sister Mary Paulina 
says: "It is hard to restrain the temptation to cull 
more of the poet's dainty Flora, for it is a royal 
garden m which Father Tabb's muse disports, and 
she has a lovmg glance and a lyric for all the rain- 
bow children of the sun, yea, even for the 'Wild 
Flowers' that strew the woods beyond the crystal 
gate. ' ' 

Dr. William Hand Browne gives several poems 
which were not included in the published volumes of 
the priest — among those taken directly from the 
manuscript are the following : 



DEPRECATION 

Now, I listen in my grave 
For a silence soon to be. 
When, a slow-receding wave 

Hushed is memory. 
Now the falling of a tear, 
Or the breathing, half-suppressed, 
Of a sigh, re-echoed here, 

Holds me from my rest. 
ye breakers of the past, 

[95] 



FATHER TABB 

From the never-resting deep 
On the coast of Silence cast, 
Cease, and let me sleep ! 

l^EYOND 

The Eiver to the Sea, 

In language of the Land, 

Interpreter would be 

Of life beyond the strand. ^ 

Of billowy heights that never fall 

When Winds have gone their way, 

Of waving forests, dark and tall. 

Of flocks, and herds, and fertile vales, 

Of warbling birds and blossom-spray 

That scents the wandering gales. 

Alas ! 'tis all a mystery ! 

She does not understand. 

DUSK 

A,lone I am, but lonelier 

The Twilight seem*s to be ; 
The lengthening Shadows leading her 

To human sympathy. 

No word, but a mysterious clue 

To feelings deeper far. 
She fashions in the trembling dew. 

And in the steadfast star. 

[96] 



THE POET 



MATINS 



Still slug the Morning Stars remote 

With echoes now unheard, 
Save in the scintillating note 

Of some dawn-wakened bird 

Whose heart — a fountain in the light — 

Prolongs the limpid strain 
Till on the borderland of Night, 

The Stars begin again. 

A TBYSTING PLACE 

As stars amid the darkness seen, 

When flows the deepening dawn between 

To cover them from sight, 
O'erleap the spaces of the dark, 
And, spark to quickening sister-spark. 

Commingle in the light; 

E'en so a solitary way 

Do we. Beloved, day by day, 

In weariness and pain, 
Climb desolate from steep to steep. 
Till in the shadowy Vale of Sleep 

Our spirits blend again. 

The work left by Father Tabb, taken as a whole, 
forms a wonderful kaleidoscope : along with the bright 
tints of his humor and gentle satire there blend the 

[97] 



FATHER TABB 

soft colors of his thoughts as expressed concerning the 
birds, the flowers, the chiklren ; the sombre tones of his 
more grave and stately themes, his sonnets; and the 
pure radiance of his religious and spiritual songs. 

No poet of his age is so varied as to the style and 
subject of his verse and yet each and every gem bears 
plainly stamped upon it the image and superscription 
of his wonderful, magnetic personality. His love, his 
sympathy, his joyousness, and his deep reverence for 
all things sacred are the heritage he has left to the 
lovers of pure song. The power possessed by the poet- 
priest to bring out the beauty of the small and gen- 
erally considered insignificant things of nature is well 
known. His fame is steadily on- the increase and for 
many years he has been as widely read and as deeply 
appreciated in England and on the Continent as in 
America. 

Dr. Browne says : ' ' Poetry of this kind demands a 
very refined and delicate technique, and that of 
Father Tabb, within his self-imposed limits, seems 
absolutely perfect. He attempts no innovations or 
audacities ; his measures and rhythms are simple and 
familiar. The phrase is always the right phrase, 
which cannot be bettered; the diction is pure, direct 
and noble. 

' ' The poet Herrick, whose best work in delicacy and 
felicity of phrase is not unlike Father Tabb's, was 
also threatened with loss of sight, and cheerfully al- 
ludes to his failing vision : 

[98] 



THE POET 

' ' I begin to wane in sight — 
Shortly I shall bid good-night; 
Then no gazing more about, 
When the tapers all are out." 

"Father Tabb bears his privation with equal seren- 
ity, but with graver thought, as shown by the quatrain 
called 

A PRAYER IN DARKNESS 

The day is nearer unto night 
Than to another day ; 
' If closer to Thee, Lord of Light, 
In darkness let me stay. 

It has been said that trying to make selections from 
Father Tabb's poems is like culling a posy from a 
patch of wood- violets — those we leave always seem 
bluer than those we have taken. But I think the fol- 
lowing may be regarded as representative in char- 
acter : 

THE RING 

Hold the trinket near thine eye 
And it circles earth and sky ; 
Place it further and, behold, 
But a finger 's-breadth of gold. 

'Tis thus our lives, Beloved, lie 
Ringed in love's fair boundary; 

[99] 



FATHER TABB 

Place it fiirtlier and its sphore 
Measures but a falling- tear. 

Ill speaking- o1" his little song, "The Ilalf-Rmg 
Moon," Father Tabb hmgliingly said tliat it was "ten 
years a-eoniing!'' 

THE HALF-RING MOON\ 

Over the sea, over the sea, , 
My love lie is gone to a far coiintrie ; 
But he brake a ^-olden ring with me, 

A pledge of his love to be. 

Over the sea, over the sea. 
He comes no more from the far eountrie ; 
But where the young moon used to be, 

Tliere hangs the half of a ring for nie. 

The priest heai-d tliat a young girl had died in a 
house near Ellieott City on a certain night. As he 
passed the place in his walk the next evening he saw 
a jessamine creeping ui^ the walls, which suggested 
the following poem. He wrote it then and there on a 
piece of loose paper, his foot on a rock, the paper on 
his knee and an umbrella over him — as it was 
raining hard. 

THE WHITE JESSAMINE 

I knew she lay above me, 
AVluM-o thr casoiuent all the night 

[1 00] 



THE POET 

Shone, softened with a phosper glow 

Of sympathetic light. 
And that lier fledging spirit pure 

Was pluming fast for flight. 

Each tendril throbbed and quickened 

As I nightly climbed apace, 

And could scarce restrain the blossoms 

When, anear the destined place, 
Her gentle whisper thrilled me, 

Ere I gazed upon her face. 

I waited, darkling, till the dawn 
Should touch me into bloom. 
While all my being panted 

To outpour its first perfume, 
■ When lo ! a paler flower than mine 

Had blossomed in the gloom ! 

INTIMATIONS 

I knew the flowers had dreamed of you, 
And hailed the morning with regret ; 

For all their faces with the dew 
Of vanished joy were wet. 

I knew the winds had passed your way, 
Tiiough not a sound the truth betrayed 

About their pinions all the day 
A summer fragrance stayed. 

[lOl] 



FATHER TABB 

L 
And so, awaking or asleep, 

A memory of lost delight, 

By day the sightless breezes keep, 

And silent flowers by night. 

. MY PHOTOGRAPH 

My sister Sunshine smiled on me. 

And of my visage wrought a shade. 

''Behold," she cried, "the mystery 
Of which thou art afraid!" 

"For Death is but a tenderness, 

A shadow, that unclouded Love 
Hath fashioned in its own excess 

Of radiance from above. ' ' 

RECOGNITION 

At twilight, on the open sea, 
We passed, with breath of melody — 
A song, to each familiar, sung 
In accents of an alien tongue. 

We could not see each other's face, 
Nor through the glowing darkness trace 
Our destinies ; but brimming eyes 

Betrayed unworded sympathies. 

» 

A Protestant gentleman once said to Father Tabb 
that he could not see the use of the contemplative 

[102] 



THE POET 

sisterlioods of the Catholic Chureh, while he admired 
the active orders. The following is Father Tabb's 
answer : 

THE SISTERS 

The waves forever move ; 

The hills forever rest : 

Yet each alike the heavens approve 

And Love- alike hath blessed 

A Martha's household care, 

A Mary's cloistered prayer. 

THE DAYSPRING 

What hand with spear of light 
Hath cleft the side of Night, 
And from the red wound wide 
Fashioned the Dawn, his bride? 

Was it the deed of Death? 
Nay, but of Love, that saith, 
"Henceforth be Shade and Sun, 
In bonds of Beauty, one." 

PHOTOGRAPHED 

For years, an ever-shifting shade 
The sunshine of thy visage made; 
Then, spider-like, the captive caught 
In meshes of immortal thought. 

[103] 



FATHER TABB * 

E'en so, with half-averted eye, 
Day after day I passed thee by. 
Till suddenly a subtler art 
Enshrined thee in my heart of heart. 

In speaking of the above, Father Tabb said : ' ' Es- 
pecially true in the ease, of 'Reb!' " ''Reb" was 
the nickname of a member of the Class of '95 at St. 
Charles College, a young man from Georgia. 

THE CHORD 

In this narrow cloister bound 
Dwells a Sisterhood of Sound, 
Far from alien voices rude 
And in secret solitude. 
Unisons, that yearned apart, 
Here, in harmony of heart, 
Blend divided sympathies, 
And in choral strength arise. 
Like the cloven tongues of fire. 
One in heavenly desire. 

COMPENSATION 

How many an acorn falls to die 
For one. that makes a tree ! 
How many a heart must pass me by 
For one that cleaves to me ! 

[104] 



THE POET 

HoAV many a suppliant wave of sound 
Must still unheeded roll, 
For one low utterance that found 
An echo in my soul ! 

TO THE SUMMER WIND 

Art thou the selfsame wind that blew 

. When I was but a boy ? 

Thy voice is like the voice I knew, 

And yet the thrill of joy 
Has softened to a sadder tone — 

Perchance the echo of my own. 

Beside a sea of memories 

In solitude I dwell ; 
Upon the shore forsaken lies 

Alas ! no murmurin"" shell ! 
Are all the voices lost to me 
Still Avandering the world with thee? 

CHILDHOOD 

Old SorroAv 1 shall meet again, 
And Joy, perchance — but never, never, 
Happy Childhood, shall we twain 
See each other's face forever! 

Yet I would not call thee back. 
Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me, 
Thine old companion, on the ^ rack 
Of Age, should sadden even thee. 

[105] 



FATHER TAHli 

THE STRANGER 

He entered; but the mask he wore 
Concealed his face from me. 
Still, something I had seen before 
He brought to memory. 

"Who art thou? What thy rank, thy name?' 
I questioned, with surprise. 
"Thyself!" the laughing answer came, 
"As seen' of others' eyes!" 

KILLDEE 

Killdee ! Killdee ! far o 'er the lea 

At twilight comes the cry. 
Killdee ; a marsh-mate ansAvereth 

Across the shallow sky. 

Killdee ! Killdee ! thrills over me 
A rhapsody of light, 
And star to star gives utterance 
Between the day and night, 

Killdee! Killdee! Memory, 
The twin birds, Joy and Pain, 

Like shadows parted by the sun. 
At twilight meet again! 

THE PLAINT OF THE ROSE 

Said the budding Rose, "All night 
Have I dreamed of the joyous Light : 

[106] 



THE POET 

How long doth my lord delay! 
Come, Dawu, and kiss from mine eyes away 
The dewdrops co]d and the shadoAvs gray, 
That hide thee from my sight!" 

Said the f nil-blown Rose, "0 Light! 
(So fair to the dreamer's sight!) 
How long doth the Dew delay ! 
Come back, sweet sister shadows gray, 
And lead me from the world away. 

To the calm of the cloister Night!" 

INDIAN SUMMER 

'Tis said, in death, upon the face 

Of Age, a momentary trace 
Of Infancy's returning grace 

Forestalls decay; 

And here, in Autumn's dusky reign, 
A birth of blossoms seems again 

To-flush the woodland's fading train 
With dreams of May. 

A PHONOGRAPH 

Hark ! What his fellow-warblers heard 

And uttered in the light. 
Their phonograph, the mocking-bird, 

Repeats to them at night. 

[107] 



FATHER TABB 

"FOR THE RAIN IT RAINETH EVERY DAY" 

Ay, every day some rain doth fall, - 

And every day doth rise ; 
'Tis thus the heavens incessant call, 

And thus the earth replies. 

PREJUDICE 

A leaf may hide the largest star 

From Love 's uplifted ey«f ; 
A mote' of prejudice outbar 

A world of Charity. " 

DISCREPANCY 

One dream the bird and blossom dreamed 

Of Love, the whole night long; 
Yet tM^ain its revelation seemed, 

In fragrance and in song. 

SAP 

Strong as the sea and silent as the grave. 

It ebbs and flows unseen; / 
Flooding the earth — a fragrant tidal Avave — 

With mist of deepening green. 

ALTER ERGO 

Thou are to me as is the sea 

Unto the shell; 
A life whereof I breathe, a love 

Wherein I dwell. 

[io8] 



THE POET 

MOMENTS 

Like the manna, mute as snow, 
SAvit't the moments come and go, 
Each snffieient for the needs 
Of the multitude it feeds; 

- One to all and all to one, 
■ Superfluity to noiu\ 
Ever dying but to give 

Life wher(M)n alone Ave live. 

LOSS 

For one extinguished liglit 
Of Love, all heaven is night; 
For 6ne frail tloAver the less, 
The world a wilderness. 

PINIS 

to be with thee sinking to thy rest, 

Thy journey done ; 
The world thou leavest blessing thee and hlest, 

O setting sun ; 
The elouds, that ne'er the morning joys forget, 

Again aglow. 
And leaf and tioAver with tears of twilight Avet 

To see thee go. 

[109] 



FATHER TABB 

THE OLD YEAR'S BLESSING 

Like Simeon of old, 
The new-born babe I hold 

Upon my heart : 
According to Thy word. 
Let now Thy servant, Lord, 

In peace depart. 

THE DIAL 

} 
A dreamer in the dark, I grow 

Prophetic in the morning glow; 

Thereon a slender shade I throw — 

A sign in Babylon to say 

"Thon'rt in the balance weighed, Day, 

Found wanting, and shalt waste away," 

And now in Night's pavilion, a^ 

The stars are writing on the wall, 

"Behold, thy kingdom too must fall!" 

MORNING AND NIGHT BLOOM 

A star and a rosebud white. 
In the morning twilight graj^, 
. The latest blossom of the night, 
; The earliest of the day; 

The star to vanish in the night. 
The rose to stay. 

A star and a rosebud white. 
In the evening twilight gray; 

[no] 



THE POET 

The earliest blossom of the night, 

The latest of the day; 
The one in darkness finding light, 

One, lost for aye. 

FRATERNITY 

I know 2iot but in every leaf 
That sprang to life along with me, 
Were written all the joy and grief 
Thenceforth my fate to be. 

The wind that whispered to the earth, 
The bird that sang its earliest lay, 
The flower that blossomed at my birth • 
My kinsmen all were they. 

Aye, bnt for felloAvship with these 
I had not been — nay, might not be ; 
Nor they bnt vagrant melodies 
Till harmonized to me. 



THE SEED 

Bearing a life unseen, 
Thou lingerest between 

A flower withdrawn, 
Ami — M-hat thou ne 'er shalt see — 
A blof^om yet to be 

"When thou art gone. 



FATHER TABB 

Unto the feast of Spring 
Thy broken heart shall bring 

What most it craved, 
To find, like Magdalen 
In tears, a life again 

Love-lost • — and saved ! 

The following was suggested by the tree tops 
waving outside Father Tabb's classroom windo^v : 

AGAINST THE SKY 

See, where the foliage fronts the sky, 
How many a meaning we descry 
That else had never to the eye 
A signal shown! 

So we, on life's horizon4ine. 
To watchers waiting for a sign, 
Perchance interpret Love's design, 
To us unknown ! 

A SIGH OF THE SEA 

''Why is it," once the Ocean asked, 
. As on a summer's day, 
Basking beneath a cloudless sky. 
In musing rest he lay, 

"Why is it that, unruffled still, « 
The Welkin's brow I see, 

[112] 



THE POET 

While mine, with racking wind and tide, 
Deep-furrowed oft must be? 

"Her richest gems, by night displayed, 

Man's filching grasp defy; 
But safety for my treasures, none. 

Though buried deep they lie. 

"The hands that from her diadem 

In reverence recoil, 
Are bold my depths to penetrate 

And of their w^ealth despoil. 

"A thousand ships with cruel keel 

My writhing waves divide, 
But mariner hath never steered 

Athwart her tranquil tide. 

"Why is it thus, that rest to her 

And toil to me is given ? ■ — 
That she the blessing ever meets, 

And I, the curse of heaven?" 

The Ether heard. Through all her depths 

A deeper azure spread, 
And to the murmuring Ocean thus 

With radiant smile, she said : 

"Who cleaveth to the earth, as thou, 

Ne'er knows tranquillity-; 
Naught pulses in my bosom wide 

But God, whose own am I. " 

[113] 



FATHER TABB 

ALL IN ALL 

One heaven above ; 

But many a heaven beloAV 

The dewdrops show ■ — 
God's tenderness 
Subdued in every teardrop, to express 

The whole of Love. 

TO A BLIND BABE, SLEEPING 

Are thy dreams dark? Or is the light 
Alone denied thy waking sight, 
While softer stars their vigils keep 
Within thy hemisphere of sleep? 

Yes : haply, as noon-blinded beams 
Awake in darkness, o'er thy dreams 
The pity that begets our tears, 
A kindling radiance appears. 

SECURITY 

The noonday smiles to hear 
The oft-repeated tale 
■ Of shadows lurking near 
Her sunbeams to assail. 

Nor heed the placid Night 
The prophesy of doom 

To drown her stars in light 
As fathomless as gloom. 



THE POET 

INDIAN SUMMER 

No more the battle or the chase 

The phantom tribes pursue, 
But. each in its accustomed place 

The Autumn hails anew: 
And still from solemn councils set 

On every hill and plain, 
The smoke of many a calumet 

Ascends to heaven again. 

A RUBRIC 

The aster puts its purple on 
When flowers begin to fall, 

To suit the solemn antiphon 
Of Autumn's ritual. 

And deigns, unwearied, to stand 

In robes pontifical. 
Till Indian Summer leaves the land, 

And Winter spreads the pall. 

RELEASE 

So long I am a prisoner 
As Time and Thought surround me here : 
When Time is dead, and Memory 
Deserts the ramparts, I am free. 

[115] 



FATHER TABB 



SILENCE 



A sea wherein the rivers of all sound 

Their streams incessant pour, 
But whence no tide returning e'er hath found 

An echo on. the shore. 

TO A WOOD-VIOLET 

In this secluded shrine, \ 

miracle of grace, 
No mortal eye but mine 

Hath looked upon thy face. 

No shadow but mine own 

Hath screened thee from the sight 

Of heaven, whose love alone 
Hath led me to thy light. 

Whereof ■ — as shade to shade 

Is wedded in the sun ■ — 
A moment's glance hath made 

Our souls forever one. 

■ IN ABSENCE 

All that thou art not, makes not up the sum 
Of what thou art, Beloved, unto me : 

All other voices, wanting thine, are dumb ; 
All vision, in thine absence, vacancy. 

[ii6] 



THE POET 

IDEALS 

Could Da}- demand a gift of Night, 
And Night the boon bestow, 
'Twonld be that heaven of star-delight 
Where dreams departed go. 

Could Night the gift demand, and Day 
The benefit confer; 
'Twould be, upon his twilight way 
A lengthened hour with her. 

BARGAINS 

"What have you in your basket?" 
I questioned Mother Sleep. 

"Ah, many a golden casket 
Of jewel-dreams I keep 

At passtime prices for the friend. 

Who's half-an-hour or more to spend." 

N THE RAINPOOL " 

I am too small for winds to mar 
My surface; but I hold a Star 
That teaches me, though low my lot, 
That highest fleaven forgets me not. 

"CHANTICLEER 

A crowing, cuddling little Babe was he, 
A child for little children far or near. 

[117] 



FATHER TABB 

When lie stood and croAved upon liis mother's knee. 
The morning echoed, "Welcome, Chanticleer!" 
He was a crowing, cuddling little Babe ! 

When his mother wore, alas, her life away. 
He was wonder-wide to see the children weep, 
But he crowed, and cuddled close enough to lay 
His head upon her heart, and went to sleep : — 
He was a cuddling, crowing little Babe ! 

God Himself was tender to him; for behold, 
An Angel in a dream* (the children said) 
Came and kissed him till his little cheek was cold; 
So he never saw the tears the twilight shed. 
He was a crowing, cuddling little Babe! 

. WINTER TREES 

Like champions of old. 
Their garments at their feet, 

Defiant of the cold 
The wrestling winds tliey meet: 
Anon, if victors found, 

With vernal trophies crowned. 

FATHER TABB'S POETRY 

(From "The New Century") 

Not a great while ago critics were asserting that 
the vogue of poetry had passed. They pointed to 

[ii8] 



THE POET 

the fact that the decay in appreciation of poetry 
M'as evident. This showed a tendency to misread 
facts : it also indicated that the critics are largely 
dominated by the publishers and fashions. It was 
asked: ''Is it possible to re-vitalize a form of thought 
that seemed, at least, to have gone with the poetic 
childhood of the race?"' The little singers, perhaps 
of an empty day, of course, were piping in the gloom. 
Austin and Dobson were singing — tender, pretty 
little songs. Others were devoting both thought and 
talent to ambitious efforts in the form consecrated 
by time, and they were producing too, works which, 
despite many beauties of detail, failed to floAver into 
a splendor that recalls the middle Victorian era. 

Those Avho were gleaning in the Avornout furrows 
at last made "a find." The Athenaeum eagerly 
hailed it. The poet was John B. Tabb. He was a 
real poet ; there could be no mistaking that fact. He 
was strangely similar to Shelley, with a hint of Poe 
at his best, with, of course, his spectral jiarapher- 
nalia omitted. Even the critics grew lyrical in their 
praise at the exquisite glimpses of lyric beauty. 
Few^ knew that the author, John B. Tabb, was 
''Father Tabb," and that he was a professor at St. 
Charles College, Ellicott City, Md. The note that 
Father Tabb struck was frankly lyrical. He is, in 
our opinion, one of the most notable exemplifications 
in modern art of the lyrical spirit, confined only by 
rigorous canons. 



FATHER TABB 

So much has been written of romanticism and 
realism that it is rather a mark of distinction in 
criticism to ignore the terms and cherish the essence 
of each. We have been told that we could not have 
straj'^ed farther from the truth when we classed 
Father Tabb as a realist. And yet we were not al- 
together sure that in the elemental sense in which 
we are using the term he is not realistic, for his art, 
notwithstanding its lyric aloofness, is most directly 
and intimatelj^ associated witji life, and invariably 
he composes with his "eye on the object." 

As a lyrist he is supreme. He is concerned with 
impressions rather than with documents, with the 
imaginative expression of the emotions rather than 
with photographic literalness; the truth is there but 
the truth made beautiful because seen by the eye 
of a poet. Father Tabb is fundamentally, absorb- 
ingly a poet; the gift of the magical word has been 
miraculously vouchsafed him. He has been elected 
to utter the truth in terms of fervor and beauty. At 
his best — in such things as "Poe-Chopin, " "Shel- 
ley," "Eternity" — he has touched heights and 
depths unknown to the mass of his contemporaries. 

"The White Jessamine" is an expression that was 
unknown before the Victorian era — unless it has 
been foreshadowed in some of the Elizabethan and 
Jacobean love songs. There are touches of Tenny- 
son's "Maud" in it; it is simple; yet the truth in 
it is so general that all can feel it. It has the vision 

[120] 



THE POET 

— piercing', intolerable — of Shelley, the verity of 
Tennyson, and the overflowing melocV of Poe, 
Another exquisite poem, full of color, altogether 
magical in mood and temperament, is "Ave: Sid- 
ney Lanier." 

Father Tabb is in direct line of literary descent 
from the greatest of the English poets. Still there 
is little in. his poetry, in its accent or movement, to 
remind one of the past. Again and again in his 
poetry Father Tabb strikes that "sheer, inimitable 
Celtic note" which Matthew Arnold has taught us 
so readily to recognize. We certainly do not go be- 
yond the truth when we afHrm that in such a 
splendid phantasy as "To A Wood-Robin" and in 
such exquisite expressions as "Transfigured," 
"The Sisters,-" "My Messmate," there is an inevi- 
table felicity, a graphic nearness and splendor, a 
lyric fervor which are as rare as the Greek Kalends 
in English poetry. 

His work, piercing in tenderness, reticent and 
technically finished, is the work of an exquisite 
artist in words, and admirable psychologist, a re- 
ligious soul. He is one of the most vital forces in 
contemporary letters — he carries the credentials of 
genius." 

The above masterly criticism of the work of Father 
Tabb was found in the annotated volumes of his 
poems, preserved by Father Perrig. The clipping 
was from "The Neiv Century," as before stated, but 

[121] 



FATHER TABB 

bore no date, neither was the name of the writer 
given. It seems, however, a most fitting ending 
for the chapter devoted to the poetic side of the 
Poet-Priest. 



122] 



CHAPTER S:i 
THE PRIEST 

To quote once more from Reverend F. Joseph 
Mag'ri : ''As great as is Father Tabb the poet, he 
is greater still as the priest of God. So profound 
was his humility that, after his ordination to the 
diaeonate, he -wished to go no further but to remain 
a deacon and thus teach at St. Charles College. His 
superiors insisted that his was an undoubted priestly 
calling and so, at their bidding, he was soon privi- 
leged to stand at the Altar of God and offer to Him 
the infinite sacrifice of the Mass. 

"Each morning before beginning his college 
duties he would fervently pray and meditate: the 
servers who in turn would assist him at his daily 
Mass all testify to the deep and touching devotion 
with which Father Tabb oft'ered to God the first 
fruits of the day.'' 

One of the servers referred to says: "It was my 
privilege to serve Father Tabb's Mass for several 
years, taking my turn with another of the students ; 
he prepared for this sublime religious act by daily 
meditation. How much time he devoted to medita- 
tion no one knows. He began his Mass at five o'clock 
A. M. and one morning I went to the Chapel by mis- 



FATHER TABB 

take at four o'clock and Father Tabb was there en- 
gaged in meditation. I was not greatly surprised at 
this for it was rumored that he could be found at 
all hours of the night in the gallery overlooking 
the Chapel." 

It was at the Altar of God that he attained that 
radiance of spirit that shone through his whole be- 
ing and even when that saddest of afflictions ■ — 
blindness — came 'upon him, he was still possessed 
of the peace and joy which spring from things not 
temporal but eternal. 

Reverend Lucian Johnston of St. Thomas Church, 
Baltimore, gives a delightful sketch of Father Tabb 
as he knew him and paints for us a most vivid pic- 
ture of his celebration of the Christmas -Mass. 
Father Johnston says : 

"I first knew Father Tabb somewhere in the sev- 
enties when I was a little barefoot boy playing 
around my father's, home at Waverley, near here. 
The home was then quite a rendezvous for many old 
Confederate and literary friends of my father's. 
Vice-President Stephens, General Tooms, Sidney 
Lanier, and others were often visitors and among 
them frequntly was Father Tabb. I distinctly re- 
member how at first I was extremely timid with him ; 
but that was because as a mere boy I did not ap- 
preciate the exquisite tenderness of his nature. 

"Then, when I went to St. Charles, I have the next 
vivid recollection — of his first Mass ; I think it was 
at midnight of a Christmas. I do not now remember 

[124] 



THE PKIEST 

what lie said but I do still remember that his few 
words delivered in his peculiarly sensitive tones im- 
pressed me profoundly. They came like the flash 
of the angelic light before the shepherds — and then, 
as quickly, the brilliance faded. I was then only 
fourteen but it all seemed very sweet, something 
'rich and strange,' unlike anything- I had hitherto 
known. It is curious how that Mass-scene is today 
so vivid — and its vividness is due to his strangely 
beautiful exquisiteness. 

"From then on I knew him, of course, like the 
other students, except that I saw a great deal more 
of him in vacation time. His nature ever impressed 
me as peculiarly delicate. In spite of his biting wit 
and almost boyish love of joke. Were a fairy sun- 
beam to become imprisoned in a human body • — that 
about conveys m.y idea. He was meant for all things 
delicate, strangely delicate in spite of the fact that 
nature had not endowed him Avith a good physique. 

"I suppose his poetry is the best reflection of his 
delicacy — 'timidly sweet, like an elf looking from 
a moonlit rosebush, yet mischievous — a child some- 
what after the manner of Francis Thompson without 
the latter 's moodiness. And it seems to me that he 
himself was so excessively shy just because of this 
fairy delicacy which shrank from the noise and 
roughness of workday life. 

"Like a good manj' who survived the horrors of 
the ancient regime of the South, he never quite got 
used to modern ways. My own father was equally 

[125] 



FATHER TABB 

helpless in that fashion. But all those men had that 
peculiar delicacy of soul which seems noAv to be 
rarer and rarer. Sometimes I think they were wiser 
than we — wise with the wisdom of the lilies of the 
field, even though War's scythe did mow them down 
so mercilessly." 

Can it be that the midnight Mass which so vividly 
impressed the boy that it remains with him to this 
day, is the one mentioned in M. S. Pine's biography 
as the first Mass celebrated by Jihe young priest? It 
would seem from what she says of this Mass that it 
must be identical with the one described by Father 
Johnston: "Holy Orders were conferred upon him 
during, the Ember Week of Advent, December 20, 
by Archbishop Gibbons in the Cathedral of the As- 
sumption in Balitmore. It was in the College Chapel, 
at the midnight Mass of Christmas that he had the 
privilege of offering the Divine Victim to His Eternal 
Father for the first time ; and so deeply affected was 
he by the greatness and sacredness of the act that he 
would celebrate only one Mass although the Church 
allowed her priests to say three at the solemn Feast 
of the Nativity of Christ. At the close of the Gospel 
he turned and addressed his audience in brief but 
impressive tones, referring with affectionate grati- 
tude to the beautiful chalice he had just used, it 
being a testimonial of the love and appreciation of 
his pupils. His love overflowed in thanksgiving to 
Almighty God who permitted him to celebrate his 
first Mass in the Chapel so dear to him ; and he ex- 

[126] 



THE PRIEST 

pressed an ardent desire that after a life consecrated 
to his beloved inijiils, he might offer the sacrifice 
for the last time Avithin its holy walls." 

God heard his prayer and granted it in fullness, 
for from that day until the day of his death the 
gifted poet-priest was a part of the College. Toward 
the end of his life, when his siglit became very dim, 
he practically said ]\Iass from memory. The students 
who acted as his servers were instructed to be ready 
to prompt him but so complete was his attention and 
so wonderfully retentive was his memory that never 
in the two years of his blindess did he falter. 

He gave to the College the service of his whole 
being ; and the angels alone could measure the height 
of moral, spiritual and literary influence which he 
exerted, not only on those who canu^ directly under 
the gentle influence of his personality in the class- 
room, but on hosts of friends and strangers alike — 
through his letters and through his published works. 

Father Tabb's religious poems have been char- 
acterized as "gems of the sanctuary" and an emi- 
nent critic says of them: "the more purely devo- 
tional poems, dealing with the mysterious and sacred 
things of his faith, are not within the province of 
mere literary criticism. But, as we might expect, 
it is the tenderer and more human aspect of things 
divine that appeal to him most strongly : the Holy 
Babe as the type of infant innocence and His Mother 
as the type of motherhood. Many of these poems 
treat of children and of childhood, and always with 

[x-'7] 



FATHER TABB 

an ineffable tenderness and almost, reverence as if 
some light from the Manger at Bethlehem shone 
about each baby head." 

AT THE MANGER 

When first her Christmas watch to keep, 

Came down the silent angel, Sleep, 
With snowy sandals shod. 
Beholding what His Mothep-'s hands 
Had wrought, with softer swaddling bands. 
She swathed the Son of God. 

Then skilled in mysteries of night. 

With tender visions of delight 
She AA^reathed His resting-place; 
Till, wakened by a warmer glow 
Than heaven itself had yet to show, 

He saw His Mother's face! 

In the last three lines he achieves the sublime ! 
The little Christmas poem "Out of Bounds" has 
been called Father Tabb's "Missionary Sermon:" 

OUT OF BOUNDS 

A little Boy of heavenly birth. 

But far from home todaj', 

Comes down to find His Ball, the Earth 

That Sin has cast awa}^ 

[128] 



THE PEIEST 

Comrades, let us one and all 
Join in to get Him baek His Ball ! 

Other noted Christmas j)oems from the pen of the 
gifted priest are : 

The Christmas Babe — generally thought to bear 
reference to the Christ Child but in reality referring 
to a little friend of Father Tabb's who was born at 
the time of the celebration of the High Mass on 
Christmas Night : 

So small that lesser lowliness 
Must bow to worship or caress: 
So great that heaven itself, to know 
Love's majesty, must look below. 

THE EXPECTED OF NATIONS 

While Shepherd Stars their nightly vigil keep 

Above the clouds of Sleep. 
Long prophesied, behold the manchild. Morn, 

Again is born. 

A CHRISTMAS CRADLE 

Let my heart the cradle be 

Of Thy bleak nativity ! 
Tossed by wintry tempests wild. 
If it rock Thee, Holy Child, 
Then as groAvs the outer din. 
Greater peace shall reign within. 

[129] 



FATHER TABB 

THE LIGHT OF BETHLEHEM 

'Tis Christmas night! the snow, 

A flock unnumbered lies! 
The old Judean stars aglow, 

Keep watch within the skies. 

An icy stillness holds 

The pulses of the night: 
A deeper mystery .enfolds 

The wondering Hosts of Light. 

Till, lo, with reverence pale 

That dims each diadem, 
The lordliest, earthward bending, hail 

The Light of Bethlehem! 

MISTLETOE 

To the cradle-bough of a naked tree, 
Benumbed with ice and snow, 

A Christmas dream brought suddenly 
A birth of mistletoe. 

The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloud 
Strode out on the night to see; 

The Herod north-wind blustered loud 
To rend it from the tree. 

But the Old Year took it for a sign, 
And blessed it in his heart : 

[130] 



THE PRIEST 

"With prophesy of peace divine, 
Let now my soul depart. ' ' 

THE LAMB-CHILD 

When Christ the Babe was born, 

Full many a little lamb 
Upon the wintry hills forlorn 

Was nestled near its dam; 

And, waking or asleep. 
Upon His Mother's breast, 

For love of her, each mother-sheep 
And baby-lamb, He blessed. 

THE ANGEL'S CHRISTMAS QUEST 

"Where have ye laid my Lord? 

Behold, I find Him not ! 
Hath He, in heaven adored. 

His home forgot? 
Give me, sons of men. 

My truant God again ! ' ' 

A voice from sphere to sphere • — 
A faltering murmur - — • ran — 

"Behold, He is not here! 
Perchance with Man, 

The lowlier made than we, 
He hides His majesty!" 

[131] 



FATHER TABB 

Then hushed in wondering awe, 

The spirit held his, breath, 
And bowed : for, lo, he saw 

'ershadowing Death, 
A mother's hands above. 

Swathing the limbs of Love ! 

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS 

'Tis Christmas Night I Again — 
But not from heaven to earth — 
Rings forth the old refrain 
"A Saviour's Birth!" 

Nay, .listen: 'tis below! 
A song that soars above, 
From human hearts aglow 
With heavenly love ! 

A CHRISTMAS CHIMB 

At Christmas time from clime to clime 
Each star to star doth sweetly chime, 
Till all the heavens are ringed with rhj^me 

Then loosed above, a note thereof 
Floats downward like a wandering dove. 
And all the world is ringed with Love ! 

The above is not included in any of Father Tabb's 
volumes of poems but was a stray bit, published on 
an illustrated page in a Christmas magazine. 

[132] 



THE PRIEST 

THE ARGONAUTS 

To Bethlehem ! To Bethlehem! 
Tlie Magi move and we with them, 

Along the selfsame road; 
Still following the Star of Peace, 
To find at last the Golden Fleece — 

The Spotless Lamb of God ! 

Many of the religions poems of the priest bear on 
the Man of Sorrows and the shadow of Gethsemane 
and Calvary, and many of them reflect the joys of 
the Easter Season — what more beautiful idea than 
the fragrant Avitnesses of the Resurrection depicted 
in 

EASTER FLOWERS 

We are His witnesses : out of the dim 

Dark region of Death we have risen with Him. 

Back from our sepulchre rolleth the stone, 

And Spring, the bright angel, sits smiling thereon. 

We are His witnesses : see, where Ave lay. 
The snoAv, that late bound us, is folded away; 
And April, fair Magdalen, Aveeping anon. 
Stands flooded with light of the new-risen Sun. 

Again his Easter joy peals forth triumphantly in 
the folloAving unique definition : 

1^33] 



FATHER TABB 

EASTER 

Like a meteor, large and bright, 

Fell a seed of golden light 

On the field of Christinas night 

When the Babe was born; 
Then, 'twas sepulchered in gloom 
Till above His holy tomb 
Flashed its everlasting bloom — 

Flower of Easter Morn! 

EASTER LILIES 

Though long in wintry sleep ye lay, 
The powers of darkness could not stay 
Your coming at the call of day, 
Proclaiming Spring. 

Nay: like the faithful virgins wise, 
With lamps replenished ye arise. 
Ere dawn the death-anointed eyes 
Of Christ, the King. 

Many of Father Tabb's poems seem rather ob- 
scure until illumined by his explanation of the cir- 
cumstances under which they were written. For 
instance : 

THE CRUCIFIX 

Day after day the spear of Morning bright 
Pierces again the ever-wounded side, 

[134] 



THE PRIEST 

Pointing at once the birthspring of the Light, 
And where for Love the Light Eternal died. 

"This came to me," said Father Tabb, "when I 
was present at the Confirmation of Philip Carroll at 
the Manor Church, when the "sun shining through 
the windoAv, fell upon the Crucifix upon the Altar." 

On August 15, 1893, Father Tabb preached upon 
the Assumption at old St. Peter's Church in Kich- 
mond. He summed up his entire sermon in four 
lines : 

THE ASSUMPTION 

Nor Bethlehem nor Nazareth, 
Apart from Mary's care; 
Nor Heaven itself a home for Him 
Were not His Mother there ! 

"The New-Year Babe" — the first stanza of which 
is as follow: 

Two together. Babe and Year, 
At the midnight chime. 
Through the darkness drifted here 
To the coast of time ■ — 

was written for a little nephew of President Dinneen 
of St. Charles College. The poet spoke of the 
New Year as "twin-brother to Father Dinneen 's 
nephew." The entire poem comprises six stanzas. 

[135] 



FATHER TABB 

Father Tabb once explained to his class that since 
Easter was regulated by the Spring moon, it was 
full moon during the agony in Gethsemane, and full 
moon every Eve of Good Friday. Hence the poem 

THE PASCHAL MOON 

Thy face is whitened with remembered woe ; 
For thou alone, pale satellite, didst see 
Amidst the shadows of Gethsemane, 
The mingled cup of sacrifice o 'erflow ; 
Nor hadst the power of utterance to show 
The wasting wound of silent sympathy, 
Till sudden tides, obedient to thee. 
Sobbed, desolate in weltering anguish, low. 

The Holy Night returnetli year by year ; 
And, while the mystic vapors from thy rim 
Distil the dews, as from the Victim there 
The red drops trickled in the twilight dim, 
The Ocean's changeless threnody we hear. 
And gaze upon thee, as thou didst on Him. 

Father Tabb meditated on this in the moonlight 
on every Holy Thursday night. 

The first book of poems published by the poet- 
priest appeared in 1884, published privately; and for 
the next ten years he gave the public nothing from 
his pen save through the magazines in this country 
and in England. Then in 1894 Small, Maynard and 

['136] 



\he priest 



Company of Hoston broujiht out liis second volunn-, 
"Poems," and so oTeat Avas the ]i()])ularit.y of the 
collection that although the first edition appeared in 
December 1894 a second was called for in January 
1895 and before the end of that year, a third and a 
fourth ; this little volume has now run through fifteen 
editions. 

Just before the publication of 'Poems,' Father 
Tabb gave the world the gem of his religious verse 
in 'An Octave to Mary,' a deluxe edition in white 
and gold, having as a frontispiece the Burne-Jones 
'Annunciation,' and ten years later came 'The 
Rosary in Vsrse' which Avas dedicated to Bishop 
Curtis and limited to three hundred and fifty copies. 
This was the most elaborate of Father Tabb's works, 
having fifteen full x^age decorative drawings and 
initial letters by Thomas B. Mete.yard. 

But not alone in these volumes do we find his 
sacred poems — they run like a thread of gold 
through all his works. M. S. Pine says: "Father 
Tabb's passionate love of the Dogmas of the Church 
has found ardent utterance in his poems, as one is 
forced to confess : indeed I dare say they form his 
chief message. The priest chants in high and worthy 
and persuasive verse the Eternal Truths, and deep 
mysteries of the Faith: "God, the All in All," Im- 
mortality, the Creation, the Fall and Redemption, 
the supreme love of God and of the laeighbor. 
Heaven, Hell (with shuddering beauty defending 
God's justice) and Purgatory, the Sacraments and 

[^37] 



FATHER TABB 

the Virtues, the glories of the Priesthood and the 
Religious State. In truth the harvest of heavenly 
wisdom garnered in these little sheaves of poesy is 
incalculable, the Sovereign Truth to whom they are 
consecrated, as was the whole life of the poet, has 
shed into them the perfumed essence of heavenly 
grace, that unction we find so often in the writings 
of saints and holy men. To him the very arrange- 
ment of the liturgical year is a suggested epic, based 
as it is on a deep parallel between the evolution of 
the seasons and that of the Christian soul of the 
human race." 



[138] 



CHAPTER XII 
TWILIGHT 

For four or five years before his death Father 
Tabb's sight was growing dimmer and for two years 
he was in total darkness — the heaviest possible afflic- 
tion to one whose eyes were accustomed to feast on 
every aspect of nature and whose powers of obser- 
vation were acute and well trained. 

When his sight was so impaired as to make it im- 
possible for him to fill his position longer, he gave this 
notice to the press: "My sight'nearly gone, I remain 
where I am — not as the Faculty would generously 
have me, a pensioner of the college — but paying as 
long as I am able, fuU board. It is only to keep me 
from seeking some asylum that the Faculty consents 
to my having my own way — the greatest kindness 
it can do me." 

An editorial in a Richmond, Virginia, paper made 
the following comment about this time: "The an- 
nouncement of the failing eye-sight of the gifted poet- 
priest, Rev. John Bannister Tabb of St. Charles Col- 
lege, Howard County, Maryland, is received with a 
sense of personal sorrow not only by those honored 
by the poet's friendship, but by many others to whom 
the distinguished author is unknown except through 
the inspiration and keen pleasure derived from the 

[139] 



FATHER TABB 

spiritnalit}^, the aesthetic beauty, the perfect rhythm 
found in his verse. To Homer and Milton came the 
affliction of loss of sight, althought this great physical 
deprivation seemed but to unfold to them the 'vision 
splendid' of the soul. To no poet of recent years are 
the lyrics of Father Tabb more closely allied than to 
those of Philij) Bourke Marston, who, almost totally 
blind from youth, was yet one of the truest, choicest 
poets of his time. To both Marston and Tabb was 
given almost etherial delicacy of fancy and the same 
unerring sense of exquisite beauty of the simplest 
works of nature. 

"For many years an able instructor in English 
Literature, the author has no more ardent admirers 
than the students, past and present, of St. Charles 
College — those who have been privileged to enter into 
a fuller appreciation and closer communion with 
master minds through the vivid interpretation of 
their instructor. The inspired lines of Shakespeare, 
Tennyson, Keats and Shelley are at the tongue's end 
of this humble, earnest priest and it is a consolation 
to his friends to know that in the twilight of dimmed 
sight many of the greatest thoughts of the greatest 
minds will bear him company. 

"To the imagination of the dreamer Father Tabb 
adds the courage of the soldier and the christian. He 
enters upon a period of earthly trial not with a spirit 
of vain repining but of hopeful strength. Fortified 
by the mental resources of a lifetime, and surrounded 
by helpful appreciation, Father Tabb's inspiration as 

[140] 



TWILIGHT 

a poet can still go on. His vigor of mind will be a 
constant incentive to further poetical work, and al- 
though surrounded b}' the shadows of twilight, he can 
still say in the words of the Prophet Zachariah that 
'at evening time there shall be light.' " 

This prediction was more fully realized than anyone 
at the time*' of its wtriting could have imagined. 
Father Tabb retained his bright cheerfulness to the 
end — no one shunned or pitied him because of his 
affliction and with his mind's eye he continued to 
see the beauties of nature and his sunny optimism 
even led him to make light of what to another would 
have been a burden almost past the bearing. 

In greeting, an old friend said to him one day when 
his sight was almost entirely gone: "Well, Johnny, 
how are you?" "0," he replied, "this blindness is 
not as black as it's painted!" And reference has al- 
ready been made to his humorous request to Cardinal 
Gibbons that he give him a new "See." 

His loss of sight came just at the time when the in- 
vention of the aeroplane was attracting the attention 
of the world and when the achievements of the Wright 
brothers were the theme of greatest interest. Father 
Tabb gave the following limerick to the public : 

There once were two brothers named Wright 

Who went up in aerial flight ; 

But a poet I know 

Who much higher did go. 

For he soared until "clean out of sight!" 

[141] 



FATHER TABB 

One of the first intimations that his friends outside 
the college walls had of his threatened loss of sight 
was the publication, in the Atlantic Monthly, of 



GOING BLIND 

Back to the primal gloom 
Where life began, 
As to my mother 's womb 
Must I, a man. 

Return : 
Not to be born again, 
But to remain; 

And in the School of Darkness learn 
What mean 

**The things unseen." 

He jested at misfortune and in response to condol- 
ences sent quips which made smile and tear spring 
together. But what the affliction really meant to him, 
despite his cheery attitude, the deep pathos of his 
condition and his pitiable suffering and deprivation 
are shown in 

FIAT LUX 

"Give us this day our daily bread," and light: 
For more to me, Lord, than food, is sight :" 
And I at noon have been 

[142] 



TWILIGHT 

In twilight, where my felloM'-men were seen 
''As trees," that walked before me. E'en today 
From time to time there falls upon my way 
A feather of the darkness. But again 
It passes ; and amid the falling rain 
Of tears, I lift, Lord, mine eyes to Thee, 
For, Lo I see! 

And his beautiful resignation is set forth in one of 
his last poems : 

THE SMITER 

They bound Thine eyes, and questioned, "Tell us now 
TTho smote Thee." Thou wast silent. AYhen today 
Mine eyes are holden, and again they say 
"Who smote theeT' Lord, I tell them it is Thou! 

Ten of these songs from the dark he left us — pub- 
lished in the posthumous volume of "Later Poems" 
which appeared in 1910. 

In his days of darkness one' great solace of his 
loneliness was the gift of music which remained to 
him to the last, and he would often spend houi-s at a 
time in the College Chapel, seated at the gTeat organ, 
"alone with his memories and his melodies." 

Father Tabb's blindness did not take from him the 
privilege of celebrating the Mass and it was a 
pathetic sight to see a man who had always been so 
active, so devoted to outdoor life, growing more feeble 

[M3] 



FATHER TABB ' 

as the daj^s passed, and helpless to a great extent — 
throwing his old-time spiritual vigor into the service 
so dear to his heart. 

It has been said that he made his affliction a diadem 
upon his priestly brow. 



[144] 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE END 

From the time of his loss of sight the poet's health 
had been gradually declining and in the fall of 1909, 
when very feeble, he became the prey of a serious 
bronchial trouble and no hope of his recovery was 
entertained, yet his death came as a decided shock 
when on the night of November 19th, he had a sudden 
sinking spell from which he never rallied but passed 
peacefully into the long sleep "so swee't to tired mor- 
tality. ' ' 

The "remains of the poet-priest lay in state at St. 
Charles College ; the students asked the privilege of 
standing as a guard of honor about the bier of their 
beloved companion and instructor, and on November 
21st the funeral services were held at the College, 
after which the body was taken to Richmond, Virginia, 
and laid to rest in beautiful old Hollywood Cemetery. 

The funeral sermon at St. Charles was preached 
by Rev. D. J. Comior of Scranton, Pennsylvania. 
Through the kindness of President Dinneen (of St. 
Charles College) I am enabled to give here the beauti- 
ful tribute paid to the poet-priest by his gifted pupil 
and friend : 

"How powerless does death seem in a case like this 
to'Vin a real victor3\ It was surely no violent transi- 

[M5] 



FATHER TABB 

tion by which the soul of Father Tabb passed from the 
temporal to the eternal. As an exiled spirit he 
seemed to tread the rough paths of earth, where most 
of us are. content to find a home. It was never more 
than the thinnest veil that separated him from the in- 
visible world, and hid from him the full meaning of 
those intimations from beyond, which he made the 
subject of his meditation and his song. All nature 
was to him an apocalypse — a partial revelation of the 
beauty that is eternal, 

'My God has hid Himself from me 
Behind. whatever else I see,' 

he said, and in these words it is not only the poet that 
speaks but the man as we all knew him; and now by 
his death we do not feel that a life has been rudely 
interrupted, as in most cases we involuntarily do but 
that rather it has been emancipated and intensified. 
The world of spirit which was as vivid ti) liim as the 
world of sense, is surely no strange element for that 
ardent soul, which used material things not as realities 
but as shadows and symbols. The light of faith which 
was a lamp to him has guided him safely through the 
darkness, and his own beautiful words 

"The beam 
Of everlasting morning wakes upon 
His dazzled gaze, revealing one by one 
His visions grown immortal in the gleam." • 

[146] 2 



THE END 

' ' But yet Father Tabb 's death is an occasion of more 
than ordinary sorrow. In him the literary world has 
lost a great genius, our Alma Mater has lost its chief 
ornament and we have lost more than all — a true 
friend. As to the value to be attached to Father 
Tabb's contributions to literature, only the most dis- 
criminating critics have as yet discovered and 
ungrudgingly allowed him the place he is destined to 
occupy among his contemporaries. The field of his art 
was a limited one, his muse having never aspired to 
anything-, more pretentious than the lyric, the song 
that is 



'Short to the ear, but long 
To love and memory. ' ' 



but in his own province it is doubtful if he has ever 
been surpassed. His work, however, was absolutely 
devoid of that garishness and boisterousness which 
will win quick applause. 

"The noonday never knows," he said 
"What names immortal are." 

"Like that other Catholic poet, Francis Thompson, 
who died a year ago, his name was the property of 
the few who were able to discern genius when it comes 
unheralded, and as in his case the world will no doubt 
be aroused to a sense of its loss by the announcement 
, of his death. 

[147] 



FATHER TABB 

'' 'Tis night alone that shows 
How star surpasseth star. ' ' 

"Nature endowed him abundantly Avith the gifts 
which make the poet. He was possessed first of all 
with a rare faculty of intuition, upon which, much 
more than upon reasoning, he depended as a guide, not 
only in detecting aesthetic values, but also in judging 
the characters and situations of everyday life. And 
well he might for it was well nigh infallible. This 
keenness of perception enabled him to seize tbose more 
illusive phases of beauty, which are like revelations of 
our hidden selves, that only the true poet can make 
known to us. Then the exquisite music of his verse 
which is almost suggestive of some set melody, the 
sureness and felicity of his expression, the purit}' of 
his language, the masculinity of his thought, the utter 
artlessness, if I may say so, of his art'- — these qualities 
constitute his unassailable patent of nobilitj^ in the 
world of letters. 

, ' ' But Father Tabb as he will always linger in our 
memory, was essentially a worshippel". His art wai 
not an end but a means. Poetry was, for him, noi a 
substitution for religion, but an inspiration that made 
religion the more necessary. 

A.lthough he worshipped at a thousand shrines it 
was not the God of Pantheism, but the God of Faith, 
the God of Revelation. Child of a generation content 
with the worship of nature, he rose above the limita- 
tions of their poetic creed, and true and responsive as 

[148] 



THE END 



he was to the art tendencies of his day, he was not a 
man to rest satisfied with tendencies but went straight 
for the conclusion towards which they converged 
Like St. Augustine in a former Age his soul could 
never be contented with the vague mysticism Avitli 
wliich literature is too often satisfied to rest as if 
there were no higher philosophy. He craved for per- 
sonal and daily intercourse with his Maker and 
Saviour. He found in a. strong practical Christianity 
the fulfillment of these aspirations, which it is one of 
the highest charms, of poetry of the past century to 
express, and like another Augustine he could say to 
the intellects of his day, who made their religion con- 
sist of a kind of romantic but interminable and 
impractical quest of the Holy Grail: - Quaerite quod 
quaeritis. Sed ibi non est ubi quaeritis." His imag- 
ination could, it is true, detect God's dwelling m the 
lio-ht of setting suns, but his faith found a more real 
presence in the light of the sanctuary lamp. His 
religion was not a sentiment, but a service. It found 
its best expression not in beautiful verse, but m its 
heroic Christian Patience -his touching self-denial 
his absolute and unreserved resignation to the will ot 

""As to that one event of his life, which meant so 
much to him, and to which most of us here owe the 
opportunity of knowing Father Tabb at all, his con- 
version to the Catholic Church, I feel utterly at a loss 
to speak. No one who has not himself taken the step, 
can tell either the cost or the gain. Cost him it did 

[149] ♦ 



FATHER TABB 

without doubt. Like so many illustrious converts of 
the last century, and in obedience to the same intel- 
lectual impulse, Father Tabb unhesitatingly left com- 
panionships and associations from which one of his 
affectionate nature and strong attachments must have 
found it doubly hard to sever, and sought a home in 
the midst of strangers — strangers not only to Jhim, 
but often to his tastes and sentiments and ideas. Yet 
no one can say that he did not find what he sought. 
He was content to lose his life but we are all witnesses 
of how abundantly he gained life by the sacrifices. 
If any one ever found a home in the Church Father 
Tabb certainly found one. Always a man of 
great spirituality, of deep religious earnestness, of 
strong faith and tender piety, he saw in Catholicity 
what his soul had longed for. Man was there treated 
as a supernatural being. Grace had its regular means 
of operation side by side with nature in a visible and 
imposing dispensation of Providence, that seemed to 
be conducted in defiance of all laws of history, but 
yet was willing to have its claim judged by the 
strictest historical canons. The great truths of revela- 
tion were treated not as .something transcendental, 
from which the human reason could not trust itself lo 
draw conclusions, but as matters on which not only the 
reason but the emotions might take hold, as naturally 
as the child loves its mother, and as safely as a friend 
can put confidence in a friend. Not only was there 
belief in the Real Presence, but that belief used the 
same matter-of-fact logic which we exercise in every- 

[150] 



THE END 

day affairs. Catholics, he saw, not only defended the 
dogma on principle, bnt paid visits to the Blessed 
Sacrament. They not only believed in the Com- 
munion of Saints, but they believed so genuinely, so 
frankly, as to ask the Saints for their intercession 
with God, and to pray for the souls of their departed 
friends. 

"What these Catholic devotions became to Father 
Tabb most of us well know, and those of us who did 
not know, knew their friend only partially. He was 
a Catholic to his heart's core. As he himself expressed 
it to a priest only a few weeks since, M^hen asked the 
circumstance of his conversion, "I was always a 
Catholic — born a Catholic. Whenever any doctrine 
of the Church was spoken of, I knew it was true as 
soon as I heard it. I would have been a member of 
the Church before I was, if I had learned what the 
Catholic doctrines were, and had known that they 
were taught and practised in the Catholic Church." 
When at last he did believe, he believed with all his 
strength and all his mind, and there is many a Catho- 
lic today among those who were taught their religion 
at their mother's knee, for whom Christ's presence on 
the altar, Mar^^'s influence and authority in heaven as 
the Mother of Jesus, the duty of assisting the souls of 
Purgatory, took on a new meaning after they had met 
this amiable man of God, this gentle yet irresistible 
witness to the unseen. 

"What is more gratif.ying, however, for us to recall 
today as we stand round the mortal remains or our 

[151] 



FATHER TABB 

friend, is not what he got from religion, but what 
he gave in return. Christianity is beautiful but it is 
austere. The shadow of Calvary will obstinately 
throw its shadow over the happiness of every Thabor. 
Human life is hard to idealize. Christianity alone has 
succeeded in doing it, and she has done it not by 
escaping from the stem facts of mortal existence or 
forgetting them, but by recognizing and embracing 
them with a well-tempered spirit. ' ' Dispose thyself to 
patience rather than to consolation," says the Fol- 
lowing of Christ, "and to carry the cross rather than 
to gladness, "and it is the only philosophy that has 
stood the test successfully. The world is full of 
quixotic plans for a millennium, and they would all 
begin by changing conditions. The Saints, on the con- 
trary, ended by changing conditions about them but 
they began by meeting them, by bowing to them as the 
inscrutable 'dispensations of an All-Holy "Will, that 
needs not our genius or our talent, but only our 
obedience and our docility, to accomplish its belated 
purpose as infallibly on earth as in heaven. 

"Few men have been more deeply impressed with 
the reality of Divine Providence than Father Tabb, 
or have paid it a more sincere or more genuine homage 
by^ their lives. The presence of God was to him the 
most luminous of truths. The will of God was the 
medium through which he looked at whatever befell 
him, and the thought that reconciled him to all the 
asperities of his lot, and enabled him to bear them 

[^52] 



THE END 

with a cheerfulness and patience that will ever be a 
precious memory to the friends that witnessed them. 
His resignation under that last great affliction which 
darkened his declining days among us was the forti- 
tude of perfect Christian faith. "T have seen Saint 
Paul in chains!" was the exclamation of Ignatius' 
friends after visiting him in his prison at Salmanaca. 
It was also my sentiment a tew months ago, when I 
came to St. Charles after having heard of Father 
Tabb's total and irreparable loss of eyesight. In reply 
to my inquiries, he answered that he was never happier 
in all his life. Not a doubt now remained in his mind 
of what God w^ished of him, "and," he added, "if the 
Almighty came to me and said : ' John Tabb, you can 
have your eyesight back by asking for it, ' I would not 
ask. I would be afraid of proving unfaithful to re- 
sponsibilities of which I might not be fully aware. 
Now I know perfectly what is God's will and I am 
resigned to it." 

"I have said that Father Tabb's religion consisted 
not in sentiment but in service. The same was char- 
acteristic of his friendship. He considered no sac- 
rifice too great, no demand upon his time or his means 
too large, no personal concern or disappointment bv 
aspiration too trivial, no necessities of sickness too 
repulsive, when it was a question of his friends. His 
loyalty resembled more the unselfishness and disinter- 
estedness of a Avoman's devotion than any quality we 
are accustomed to find in man's love for man. 

[153] . - 



FATHER TABB 

"If my grief His guerdon be, 
My dark His light, 
I count each loss felicity, 
And bless the night." 

was the deliberate and unexaggerated expression of 
the affection he bestowed on those he loved. 

"One word more. It is a great privilege to stand 
here as spokesman for Father Tabb's friends on this 
occasion and give utterance to these few thoughts 
which are not my sentiments only, but the feelings, I 
am sure, of all who knew him well ; and I wish to use 
it for the one purpose of asking those prayers which 
we owe to the deceased as friend, teacher, and, above 
all, as the gentle influence that entered into the spring- 
time of our lives like a benediction from heaven and 
moulded our sentiments and characters more than we 
were aware. Father Tabb's friendship did not cease 
at the brink of the grave — Death but gave him a 
fuller opportunity of proving its steadfastness and 
•devotion. One of the greatest consolations of his 
priesthood was the power it gave him of offering the 
Holy Sacrifice for his departed dear ones. And 
though his modesty would deprecate every other ex- 
pression, to which I have given expression, this one, 
I know, his own lips would utter were they not de- 
prived of the power : ' ' Have pity upon me at least you, 
my friends, for the hand of the Lord has touched 
me." 

[154] 



THE END 

The' Richmond, Virginia, Neics-Leader of November 
23, 1909, contained the following account of the 
funeral services held at St. Peter's Church: 

"As if in poetic tribute to the memory of the poet 
who drew from her the inspiration for so much of ' ' the 
good, the true and the beautiful, ' '. Nature wept over 
the bier of John Bannister Tabb today. The blue was 
veiled by a cumbrous gre,y mist that darkened the day 
and Heaven's tears fell from the sombre-vaulted skies 
upon the casket as the body of the poet-priest was 
lowered to its last resting place in Hollywood 
Cemetery. 

"The funeral of Father Tabb took place from St. 
Peter's Church at ten o'clock this morning. Requiem 
High Mass was sung, the celebrant being Rev. Father 
J. J. Bowler. The Rev. Father De Cryse served as 
deacon and the Rev. Father Perrig of Fredericksburg 
as sub-deacon. 

"Within the sanctuary, flanked by lines of surplieed 
acoh^tes who sat at the altar rail, were the Right 
Reverend Augustus Van De Vyver, Bishop of Rich- 
mond, and a dozen priests from out-of-town parishf'S 
of this diocese. 

' ' The ceremonies in tlie Church — the old Cathedral 
where Father Tabb as a theological student, when he 
taught the pupils of the parish school of St. Peter's 
a quarter of a century ago, served at the Mass — were 
beautiful, impressive and edifying. 

"In the large assemblage that occupied the pews 
were former pupils of Father Tabb. There were pres- 

[155] 



FATHER TABB 

ent, too, many of the parishioners who knew and loved 
the brilliant Tabb in his student days: there were 
among the score of priests in the Church seated in the 
sanctuary probably a dozen who were his classmates 
at St. Charles College, where he read philosophy and 
theology and whence he was graduated into the 
priesthood of the faith of his adoption, for Father 
Tabb was a convert of Catholicism in his early youth. 
There were among those who mourned at the bier 
others who loved and admired him, Confederate 
veterans who knew him as a sailor lad when he re- 
sponded to the first call for volunteers in 'the days 
that tried men's souls' and went forth to do battle for 
the Southland he loved so well. 

''The funeral sermon was preached by the Rever- 
end Dr. Joseph Magri of St. Peter's. It was the 
touching tribute of one whose intimate association 
with Father Tabb extended through a long term of 
years. Dr. Magri made an affecting reference at the 
opening of his panegyric to the circumstance that he 
stood in the presence of five of the preceptors of his 
student days at St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Md. 
But from one the spirit had. fled. 

' ' He reviewed briefly the distinguished career of the 
gifted Father Tabb, discused the great moral influence 
of the life and works of the priest, and recounting his 
varied accomplishments, predicted immortality for the 
poems that have made the name of John B. Tabb 
famous in the world of literature. 

"Dr. Magri 's sermon was an able and scholarly dis- 

[156] 



THE END 

course, tenderly affecting and deeply touching at 
times. He paid tribute to Father Tabb the philos- 
opher, the moralist, the theologian, and the poet, bui 
placed above all these John Bannister Tabb, the priest 
of the Roman Catholic Church. 

"While sombre vested priests officiated at the sac- 
rifice of the Mass, offered for the repose of the soul 
of the brilliant Father Tabb, a male choir intoned the 
Gregorian Requiem Chant. Following the obsequies 
in the Church, a brief service was held at the grave." 

Attending the services in the Church were delegates 
from the Knights of Columbus, McGill Catholic Union, 
Confederate Memorial Literary Society, Daughters of 
the Confederacy, R. E. Lee Camp of Confederate 
Veterans, Hollywood Memorial Association, Con- 
federate Home for Women, Virginia State Library, 
Virginia Historical Society, and the press of 
Richmond. 

The pall-bearers were: Active — Dr. Lewis H. Tay- 
lor, Gordon Blair, Llewellyn McVeigh, John C. 
Hagan, James Creamer, John Chaffin, Clayton Tor- 
rence, and P. H. Donahoe. 

Honorary — Governor Claude A. Swanson, Major 
William A. Anderson, Colonel Morton Marye, Dr. 
George Ben Johnston, Dr. Armistead Taylor, J. 
Stewart Bryan, Alfred B. Williams, Dr. Dani'el Cole- 
man, R. Travers Daniel, and James B. Harvie. 

The poet was laid to rest in the section belonging to 
his friend Mr. Gordon Blair — it was his wish and 
request that he be allowed to lie in this beautiful 

[157] 



FATHER TABB 

Southern Cemetery. And there he sleeps, one of the 
many great men of the old Commonwealth, and around 
his lowly bed a loving hand has planted the flowers 
mentioned in his poems — there may be found the 
lily and the rose, the violet and jessamine and their 
humbler sisters of the wildwood so dear to the poet's 
heart, and above. him the silent stars keep watch. 

IN AETERNUM 

If Life and Death be things that seem, 
If Death be sleep, and Life a dream. 
May not the everlasting sleep 
The dream of Life eternal keep ? 

Father Tabb was a faithful priest, a gifted teacher, 
an earnest patriot, a gentleman of the old school, a 
brilliant writer, and a charming friend. 

When suffering and trouble came upon him, he bore 
them with manly and Christian fortitude and softened 
them with his own quaint philosophy. His intimacies 
and his friendships knew no lines — he loved man- 
kind. He had the quick s^'mpathies and child-heart of 
Stevenson and Eugene Field and was known far and 
wide, not as the Reverend John Bannister Tabb, M. A., 
but by the homelier and more loving title of "Father 
Tabb." 

And as his sympathies and his friendships were re- 
gardless of beliefs and forms and opinions, so the sor- 
row for his death and the loving reverence for his 
memory are universal. 

[158] 



POEMS OF FATHER TABB QUOTED 

■ Index of Titles 



Against the Sky . . . . 






. 112 


All in All 






. 114 


Alter Ego 






. 108 


Alter Idem 






. 50 


Amid the Roses . . . . 






. 60 


Angel's Christmas Quest, The 






. 131 


Argonauts, The . . . . 






. 133 


Assumption, The . . . . 






. 135 


At Keat's Grave . . . . 






. 33 


At Lanier's Grave 






. 71 


At the Manger . . , 






. 128 


Ave : Sidney Lanier 






. 68 


Babe Niva, The . 






. 64 


Baby . . 






. 65 


Bargains .... 






. 117 


Beyond . 






. 96 


Bicycles ! Trycycles ! 






. 60 


Bluebird, The . '. . 






. 58 


Bunch of Roses, A " 






. 65 


Chanticleer .... 






. 117 


Childhood .... 






. 105 


Chord, The .... 






. 104 


Christmas Babe, The . 






. 129 



[i6i] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Christmas Chime, A 
Christmas Cradle, A 
Compensation 
Confided 
Cowslip, The 
Crucifix, The 

Dandelion, The 
Dayspring, The . 
Dear Cardinal Gibbons 
Deep Unto Deep . 
Deprecation . 
Deus Absconditus . 
Dial, The 
Discrepancy . 
Dusk . . 

Easter . 

Easter Flowers 

Easter Lilies . 

End of It, The 

Evolution 

Excluded 

Expected of Nations, The 

Fern Song 

Fiat Lux 

Finis ... 

Foot-Soldiers 

For the Rain it Eaineth Every Day 



[162] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Fraternity 
Frog-Making 

Giulio . 

Gloria in Excelsis 
Going Blind . 
Goldenrod 

Half-Ring Moon, The 
High and Low 
High Flyers 
His Mission . 

Ideals . 
Idolater, An . 
In Absence . 
In Aeternum 
Indian Summer 
Indian Summer 
Intimations . 
In Touch 

Keats 

Keats-Sappho 
Killdee . 

Lake, The 
Lamb-Child, The 
Lament, A . 
Lanier's Flute 



111 
61 

93 

132 
142 

74 

100 

60 

141 

81 

117 

64 
116 
158 
107 
115 
101 

70 

35 

36 

106 

41 

131 

62 

18 



>63] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Legacy, A . 

Light of Bethlehem, The 

Limitations , 

Loss 

Lost Anchor, The 

Love's Hybla 

Mammy . 

Matins . 

Mistletoe 

Moments 

Morning and Night Bloom 

My Photograph 

My Secret . 

My Star 

New- Year Babe, The 

Off San Salvador . 

Old Year's Blessing, The 

On Cover of John B. Tabb's Late 

On Lanier's Poems 

On Fiftieth Anniversary of Poe's 

Out of Bounds 

Pains-Taking 

Paschal Moon, The 

Phantoms .... 

Phonograph, A . . . 

Photographed 

Plaint of the Rose, The . 



London Volume 
Death 



[164] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Poe 






. 66 


Poe-Chopin 






. 35 


Poe's Critics 






. 316 


Foetry 






. 91 


Pra.yer in Darkness, A . 






. 99 


Prejudice 






. 108 


Rainpool, The . . . . 






. 117 


Reaper, The . . . 






. 57 


Recognition . . . 






. 102 


Regrets, To Father Mackin . 






. 45 


Release 






. 115 


Ring, The . ' . 






. 99 


Robin . . . . • 






. 71 


Rubric, A . 






. 115 


Sap 






. 108 


Security .... 






. 114 


Seed, The . 






. Ill 


Shadow, The. ... 






.■ 72 


Shelley 






. 34 


Sigh of the Sea, A 






. 112 


Silence 






. 116 


Sisters, The .... 






. 103 


Sleeping Beauty, The . 






. 80 


Smiter, The . . • , 






. 143 


Somewhere . . • 






. 55 


Spy, The .... 






. 62 


Stranger, The 






. 106 



ti65] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Tax Gatherer, The 

This is the Catholic Priest 

Time-Brood, The . 

To a Blind Babe, Sleeping 

To a Songster 

To a Wood-Robin . 

To a Wood- Violet . 

To Death 

To Jinny . 

To Mr. Andrew Lang 

To Shelley . 

To Sidney Lanier . 

To the Summer Wind 

Tryst, The . 

Trysting Place, A . 

United . 



Virginian at the Hot Springs, A 

White Jessamine, The . 
Winter Trees 

Woman .... 

Wood-Grain . 



59 

47 

63 

114 

87 
82 

116 
75 
8 
37 
34 
70 

105 
61 
97 

80 

89 

100 

118 

83 

91 



Young Tenor, The 



92 



[166] 



-^ 



POEMS OF FATHER TABB QUOTED IN 
THIS VOLUME 

Index of First Lines 

A boot and a shoe and a slipper 60 

A certain tyrant, to disgrace 36 

A crowing, cuddling little babe was he 117 

A dreamer in the dark, I grow 110 

A gleam of heaven, the passion of a star 91 

Ah, sweet it was to feel the strain . . . ." 15 

A leaf may hide the largest star 108 

A little Boy of Heavenly birth 128 

All that thoti art not makes not up the sum 116 

Alone I am, but lonelier 96 

And, pray, who are youj 59 

Another lamb, Lamb of God, behold 90 

Are thy dreams dark ? Or is the light 114 

Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves ? 77 

Art thou the selfsame wind that blew ? 105. 

A sea wherein the rivers of all sound 116 

As Israel in days of old 74 

As stars amid the darkness seen 97 

A star and a rosebud white 110 

At Christmas time from clime to clime 132 

At Shelley's birth 34 

At twilight on. the open sea 102 

A whole-tail dog an^ a half-tail dog 62 

Ay, every day the rain doth fall 108 

• [169] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Baby in her slumber smiling 65 

Back to the primal gloom 142 

Bearing a life unseen Ill 

Beneath, above me, or below 81 

Bicycles ! Trycicles ! Nay, to shun laughter 60 

Come to me, Robin, The daylight is dying 71 

Could Day demand a gift of'Night 117 

Dance to the beat of the rain, little fern 43 

Day after day the spear of morning bright 134 

Dead fifty years ? Not so 84 

Dear Cardinal Q-ibbons 46 

Do you remember, little Cloud 59 

Ere Time's horizon line was set 68 

' ' Father ! ' ' The trembling voice betrayed 93 

For one extinguished light 109 

For years, an ever-shifting shade 103 

' ' Give us this day our daily bread, ' ' and light .... 142 

Hark ! What his fellow-warblers heard 107 

He entered ; but the mask he wore 106 

Here buried side by side 80 

His eyes are dim 37 

Hold the trinket near thine eye 99 

How many an acorn falls to die 104 

How slight soe'er the motion be 70 

[170] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

I am a lonely woodland lake 41 

I am too small for winds to mar ^ 117 

' ' I feel the flowers growing over me " 33 

If Life and Death be things that seem 158 

I knew she lay above me 100 

I knew the flowers had dreamed of yon 101 

I know not but in every leaf Ill 

I love her countenance whereon 8 

In this narrow cloister bound 104 

In this secluded shrine 116 

Into the charnel hall of fame 83 

I stand beneath the native tree 71 

It brings my mother back to me 7 

It lay to westward, as of old 15 

I wol^e : the harboured melody 92 

I wonder how the Mother-Hour 63 

Killdee ! Killdee ; Far o'er the lea. . . .- 106 

Let my heart the cradle be 129 

Like a meteor, large and bright 134 

Like champions of old 118 

Like manna, mute as snow 109 

Like Simeon of old 110 

Lo, where the blossoming woodland wakes 82 

Methinks, when first the nightingale 3B 

My God has hid. Himself from me 146 

[171] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

My thoughts fly to thee, as the bees 69 

My Sister Sunshine smiled on me 102 

Niva, child of innocence 64 

No more the battle or' the chase 115 

Not Bethlehem nor Nazareth 135 

Now, I listen in my grave 95 

Nurtured upon my Mother 's knee 89 

Lady Cloud, why are you weeping 62 

'er each the soul of Beauty flung 35 

Old Sorrow I shall meet again 105 

little bird, I'd be 87 

One day with feet upon the ground 48 

One dream the bird and blossom dreamed. ...... 108 

One heaven above 114 

Shadow, in thy fleeting form I see 72 

to be with thee, sinking to thy rest 109 

Out of the dusk a shadow 76 

Over the sea, over the sea 100 

why should Old Lang Sign 37 

Potato was deep in the dark under ground 61 

Sad Spirit, swathed in brief mortality 33 

Said Frog Papa to Frog Mama 61 

Saint Peter is the corner-stone 45 

Said the budding rose, "All night 106 

See, where the foliage fronts the sky 112 

Shall she come down and on our level stand ? . . . . 83 

[172] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Shelley, the ceaseless music of thy soul 34 

Sighed the languid Moon to the Morning Star. . 62 

Since that the dewdrop holds the star 69 

Snow ! Snow ! Snow ! 70 

So long- I am a prisoner 115 

Somewhere beneath the blinding snows 55 

So small that lesser lowliness 129 

So sweet to tired mortality the night 75 

Still sing the morning stars remote. 97 

Strong as the sea and silent as the grave 108 

Suspended o'er Goemetry 38 

Take pains, growled the tooth to the dentist 63 

Tell me whither, Maiden June 57 

The aster puts its purple on 115 

The Baby has no skies 64 

The day is nearer unto night 99 

The dewdrop holds the heaven above 70 

The noonday smiles to hear 114 

There once were two brothers named Wright .... 141 

There was laughter 'mid the roses 60 

The Eiver to the Sea 96 

The rosy mouth and rosy toe 65 

The sculptor in the marble found 80 

The ^vaves forever move 103 

They bound Thine e^^es and questioned : ' ' Tell us 

now" 143 

This is the Catholic priest 47 

This is the way that the sap-river ran 91 

Tho' long in" wintry sleep ye lay 134 

[173] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Thou art to me as is the sea 108 

Thy face is whitened with remembered woe 136 

'Tis all the way to Toe-town 63 

'Tis Christmas night, again 132 

'Tis Christmas night ! The snow 130 

'Tis not what I am fain to hide 79 

'Tis said, in death upon the face 107 

'Tis what thou wast, not what thou art 50 

To Bethlehem ! To Bethlehem ! 133 

To her, tenderness Divine 9 

To the cradle-bough of a naked tree 130 

Two together, Babe and Year 135 

'Twas not for gain of glittering gold he trod. ... 81 

Upon thy tomb 'tis graven, ' ' Here lies one 35 

We are His witnesses ! Out of the dim 133 

We've come to give you Liberty 85 

What hand with spear of light 103 

What have you in your basket ? 117 

When Christ the Babe was born 131 

When first her Christmas watch to keep : . . 128 

When God had made a host of them 58 

When palsied at the pool of Thought 18 

Where have ye laid my Lord ? 131 

Where limpid waters lie between 89 

While Shepherd Stars their nightly vigil keep . . . 129 

''Why is it" once the Ocean asked 112 

With locks of gold today 82 

[174] 



